Andew Sullivan on Bush's similarties to Nazis and others

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by JohnnyLingo

My post said nothing about response.

I merely stated you minimize the threat whenever possible and I don't know why you feel the need to.

Maybe because I feel like the threat has been exaggerated by some.

[JohnnyLingo]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

Maybe because I feel like the threat has been exaggerated by some.

Fight fire with fire. I see.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by creekster

I am surprised by this thread. ...

Sorry for the rant.

I appreciate your honesty, creekster. I'll respond in kind. I've spelled out my position on this issue so many times, I guess I take for granted people know what it is. Thus when they read my brief (and sometimes sarcastic) responses, they mistake my position.

Re: Logical Fallacy.

You dismiss the term easily, but that is a mistake. Logical fallacies are called such because they don't make sense. Did you read that link I sent you? It talks about Nazi Germany being anti-death-penalty, but that the reason they are so is because of a post-WWII Nazi-sympathetic legislator who was trying to save the lives of former Nazis. Should it be repealed on that basis?

The point being, of course, that the morality (or immorality) of the death penalty is not predicated on whether or not the Nazis did it. It should be debated on its own merits (or lack thereof).

The point? Ditto "enhanced interrogation." Leave the Nazis out of it.

Re: "price is paid" and "at what cost?"

I firmly disagree. We are not less free today than we were 5 or 10 or 50 years ago. We enjoy more freedoms and liberties than any people at any time in the history of the world, including when this country was first founded. Occasionally the broadest of those freedoms must be abridged in wartime, but historically those rights have always been restored. Can you honestly describe many ways in which you personally are less free today than one year ago?

Re: "Loss of respect around the world" and "becoming what we seek to avoid"

Bull. America is still Reagan's "shining city on a hill." People crawl over each other to get here. We are the greatest nation in the world ten times over. Read my final few paragraphs in this post: http://cougarguard.com/forum/showpos...5&postcount=37

We are not at risk of becoming those whom we are fighting. Not even a little bit.

Originally Posted by Mike Waters

Maybe because I feel like the threat has been exaggerated by some.

My feelings exactly (about loss of civil liberties).

[YOhio]

Originally Posted by creekster

I am surprised by this thread. BYU71 did you read the Sullivan piece? The simialrities between the Gestapo memo and our approach are startling. Are we Nazis? Of course not but that doesn't detract from the rather disturbing questions being raised here.

.....

Sorry for the rant.

No need to apologize. Well said and it sums up the feelings of many.

[SeattleUte]

I like creekster's rant. Some of my specific reactions are below.

Originally Posted by creekster

Are we Nazis?

Of course our civilization's objective is not just to avoid becoming Nazis. We have higher aspirations than that. So this is not really the point. The point is that we are at risk of becoming something on the continuum between Nazis and what we are that is not acceptable. Also, Hitler's regime proves, I submit, that we are indeed as humans capable of going there if we let ourselves.

Originally Posted by creekster

We have lost tremendous respect throughout the world as a result of Iraq and Gitmo.

This is an excellent point not previously brought up here. Lingo says it doesn't matter if the whole world thinks we're a piece of shit. That position doesn't seem to be the mainstream and seems to me impractical, however.

Originally Posted by creekster

like it or not, and distinguish it or not, these techniques are precisely those used by the Gestapo against Norwegian freedom fightrers and others.

Yes. The whole point of Godwin's law is that it's hyperbolic to make imprecise comparisons between some arguable wrong in our society and the Nazis or Hitler. But when we have hard evidence establishing a precise analogy obviously Godwin's law does not apply. The law does not say that the Nazis are offlimits as points of comparison or analogy no matter how bad our government's behavior or how exact a comparison can be made between the hard evidence of Nazi behavior and ours.

Originally Posted by creekster

Morever, if we err, we shoudl [sic] err in favor of civil liberty and freedom. That has always been our presumption and the actual implementation of this presumption in our daily lives is exactly why this country is great.

This is the point. History shows (1) Republican governments are ephemeral; (2) they fall from within and are taken over from within by authoritarian regimes.

[JohnnyLingo]

This is an excellent point not previously brought up here. Lingo says it doesn't matter if the whole world thinks we're a piece of shit. That position doesn't seem to be the mainstream and seems to me impractical, however.

We can't decide foreign policy on whether France approves or not.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by BarbaraGordon

But I am convinced that fifty-sixty years out we will look on this as a dark and embarrassing period in our nation's history, much as we regard the treatment of Japanese-Americans during WWII. That, too, was deemed an abridgment of rights both justified and necessary, and in retrospect I think we all agree that it was neither.

Careful. I have seen a certain poster here argue in defense of the Japanese-American internment in WWII.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

Careful. I have seen a certain poster here argue in defense of the Japanese-American internment in WWII.

Did he also argue for removing the tariffs on vaseline imports?

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Jeff Lebowski

Careful. I have seen a certain poster here argue in defense of the Japanese-American internment in WWII.

I don't think that was me, but I do find the cluck-clucking liberals do at the mistakes of times past is so distasteful.

It's so vogue these days to do it, one wonders if Paris Hilton will be talking about it next.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by Tex

I don't think that was me, but I do find the cluck-clucking liberals do at the mistakes of times past is so distasteful.

It's so vogue these days to do it, one wonders if Paris Hilton will be talking about it next.

http://www.cougarboard.com/noframes/...tml?id=1892194