haven: It might surprise you to know that you are my favorite 'communist' opponent on this board At least you're logical. But as for "common sense": 1) Please redefine; this is just a statement that situational sociopolitical behavior is not related to sociopolitical outcomes. No one's responsible for their own actions, in "common sense" talk... 2) Forums... This is a basketball fans' forum correct? An American forum, and our team currently sucks (A), and we've been attacked (B), so if given the choice to talk about A and B... What forum would you think is more appropriate? (I know, you didn't mean forums in that sense ) Incidentally, I might just be a bit paranoid. But even if I am, I think I'm onto something...
Treeman: I'm not a communist. I'm a liberal who believes ardently that 1. capitalism is the most efficient economic system yet discovered and that 2. I don't think it's fair. Most of my economic political arguments spring from those two beliefs. We know what happens when the government takes too much control in most countries: quality sinks. Yet the meritocracy of capitalism isn't real: not everyone begins equally. And even if they did, I'm too much of a softy to want anyone to live in real poverty, even if they "deserve" it. Let's just say I believe in capitalism with a huge safety net... and free education, child care, and environmental controls. Simple format for once... 1. Common sense relates, imo, to personal advantage... tis different for different people. And it's predicated upon one's unique position, skills, and many other things. 2. At least you know you're misinterpreting my ambiguity!
haven: Anyone who's honest will admit to either being a part-time socialist or a big-money slaverider. I'm a part-time socialist... All government is inherently funded by the populace it serves. Just a question of how and to what extent... And what should be paid for. I am also for free education (that would be #1 on my socialist govt-funded enterprises), child care, and environmental controls, although I'd pass the buck onto the energy consortiums who make us pay and get us involved in areas like Saudi in the first place... I'm also for socialized medicine, if that helps. Communism, as you know, is not an economic measure, it's a political measure. It's a matter of control. For the record, I don't really think you're a communist; I think you're a good student who will ace his tests in all of his political science courses. But "common sense" is not a relative concept; it's the behavioral manifestation of a singular cultural. In that sense, it could be called "cultural sense", but that would imply a more intrinsic cultural relativity than exists. "Don't smash your car into a brick wall" would be a noncultural common sense item. "Don't run over the cows in the road" would be a more localized version of Texan cultural common sense. "Don't let your enemies have the chance to fly airplanes into large office buildings" would be more in line with the cultural common sense I think our government has to have right now... And if I'm not misinterpreting your ambiguity, then your joke is lost.
A horrifying statistic would be my post/day ratio before 9/11 as opposed to my post/day stat post 9/11. My knowledge about basketball is severely limited compared to people like crispee, oeilpiere, Jeff, and Doc Rocket. And LHutz, of course... I'm just a simple, stupid Rockets fan. Our team sucks right now, but I happen to have a working knowledge of war and terrorism as a result of my education and personal morbid interest in military affairs... By any account, my post count in the past couple of months should not have eclipsed any of these people who actually know what they're talking about on a basketball BBS... I can't express how much I wish I could have kept this sh*t inside for another two years, or indefinitely... I don't deserve this 1700+ postcount. I should be nearing a thousand now, without having pissed off 95% of the BBS... Sorry, another personal rant...
treeman: I like some of Chomskey's critical theories, but most of his stuff is too radical for me. He made a speech about 9/11 that can be read here, that I consider as mistaken as... well... DaDakota ... just in the opposite: direction:http://www.counterpunch.org/chomskyterror.html I'm not going to post the text, since even I found it offensive. I'm afraid some people here might have a heart attack. Chomsky's smart, but not particularly objective, imo.
When haven says "watch out", you'd better listen... Better not. Listen to Chomsky and you're liable to lose more brain cells than you'd gander.
I would say that these are not any longer commonly held theories, except by those people who watch too much star trek, and undergrads being taught 'intro to quantum mechanics' by unintrested professors. Your 'wormhole' arguement could equaly apply to gravitons. Until someone shows me any evidence that they exist, I refuse to believe in them. Furthermore, them more I think about claiming that 'common sense' extends to abstract theories about quantum has just cause me to laugh aloud such that my girlfriend has just asked me what I found so amusing. If it's common sense, why, in all of human history, did it take thousands of years for them to be even theorised. Does that mean that all humans that came before gravitons were theorised were lacking in 'common sense?' What about the 'common sense' theories that we haven't fully elucidated? My point is, irrespective of politics, that you seem to have very passionate views on everything. Yours seems to be a very black and white world. I'm not trying to make you out to be a 'right wing nut'. I'm just saying that perhaps you advance to your positions with less temperance than most, for better or worse. I'm trying to explain to you that people define 'common sense' far beyond it's common boundries and use it as a shield for intelectualy lazy arguements. When you don't want to think about your position - use 'common sense'. It is extended far beyond the point at which it is common, or even makes sense in many cases. As for Chomsky, I don't pay attention to him, but your arguement that brain cells are lost by examining the views of someone with whom you disagree is, well... perhaps evidence in support of my belief in your black and white world.
Treeman, I'm not sure what type of "revolutionary" movement or ideas you encountered. If it was at all similar to the type that call?, called? themselves The RCP, the Revolutionary Communist Party, I can understand what imho is an overreaction on your part to a position of "my country right or wrong" as Haven put it. . I ran into the RCP at times at college campuses. They thought the Shining Path in Peru was the greatest political movement at that time. These people are seriously nuts and try recruiting only from the most psychologically disaffected. Fortunately they are always limited to a couple of hundred or less in the whole country or perhaps the world due to their nuttiness. The same with a number of similar groups. Their combativeness and authroritarianism of style fortunately leads many people to quit these groups after a short while. I remember my brother telling me that the RCP would frequently stand out in front of the police station is Austin and yell and call the cops fascist as they came back from lunch. Naturally they would then get beat up at their next demonstration on behalf of a somewhat worthy cause and then they would run around and try to get people like me to sign petitions because their rights were violated while exercising their free speech. I refused. These people live in a fantasy world where they think that they are very important. Every time for example a few people spontaneously protest some police brutality they get excited and believe that it is the beginning of the final world wide revolution that will lead to international communism! Of course as we can see with bin Laden, McVeigh and the like these fantsies can spin out of control and lead to real life tragedies. Just because many,people including myself, believe that the world would be safer if the UN had more power to settle international disputes like the 9/11 tragedy, does not mean that we are members of an international conspiracy of the "black helicopter" type that the militia types in the US yack about. Nor does it mean that we are "morons" who have been duped by an internatinal communist or other conspiracy. Regarding Chomsky much of his facts are true and correct about US and European misdeeds during colonialism and in more recent times. His tone and condescension are very annoying. I've never liked his stuff. Because he is so annoying one can tend to forget what he said at the beginning of his speech. He started with two assumptions. There is no need to make him out, however, as some sort of international arch villain who wants to impose world domination on the US. Chomsky's assumptions: The first one is just what I assume to be recognition of fact. That is that the events of September 11 were a horrendous atrocity probably the most devastating instant human toll of any crime in history, outside of war. The second assumption has to do with the goals. I'm assuming that our goal is that we are interested in reducing the likelihood of such crimes whether they are against us or against someone else.
BTW, Treeman, it's not 'one world government' or bust. In my vision of the world, the US remains completely autonomous, but remains a good neighbor. For instance, when my neighbor suggested that the sound of me shooting baskets at 12:30 in my driveway was keeping them awake, and asked if I'd mind not doing so, I cordialy asked what the latest that I could shoot and not bother them would be. While the new time cap of 11:00PM constitutes a minor imposition on me, I realise that the value of good relations with my neighbor is more important than said minor imposition. I would suggest that the same simple principals should apply to US policy. A good example of this is how Bush's unilateral 'friendly' reduction of nuclear weapons is being morphed into a US/Russian treaty reduction because Putin would feel more comfortable with such an arangement. I look at things like the military tribunals as the proverbial international 'pink flamingo in the front yard'. The neighborhood thinks it shows no class and, while we may like it, we should pull it up in order to create good will with the neighbors, unless is is a complete and total imposition on us. In contrast, I see Ashcroft as standing in the front yard in his bathrobe flipping off everyone for even making the suggestion.
ooh, ooh, I wanna play! Treeman, I think you have a few things wrong and just wanted to help, if you want to call it that. In ragards to the radical and new left: Well, first, I don't really know what the "new" left is...except the new move towards moderation (popularly)? Anyway... With respect to the liberal universities, I think you are missing that there is a big trend towards conservativism going on, not a further radicalization that you seem to be worried about. There are increasingly stronger forces moving towards a for-profit type higher education system. With this, and corporate sponsorship, there is more and more censorship and mediating going on in universities. Next, you are worried about all of the Marxist teachings. First, a wise person once said "Marxism is to communism as Christianity is to the KKK. Next, I do not see this dominance that you see, besides if someone is a "marxist scholar" that does not mean that they are marxist themselves, it is just their methodology (and most are not real marxists, btw). Further, there have been connections with the rise of post-USSR capitalist confidence and certain trends in postmodernist thought. Hardly makes it a socialist/communist trend. Also, I am a bit confused with your statement about liberals wanting to lose wars. What does that mean? I also don't buy your one-government take. Sure, there are moves towards globalization, but in case you hadn't noticed, it has be the globalization of American culture. This is something other nations, both first and third world, have been trying to fight for some time. Also, if you look at the big right-wing, super-capitalist people, they are a danger to local sovereignty as well. For example, GATT, which can throw out local laws if they are in conflict with GATT's standards. Additionally, you have NAFTA, which has spread corps a little bit, making them less and less "American," and you almost had the passing of the MAI, which would have been a lot more fun than GATT and NAFTA. Because of protest, though, it was defeated, to be tried again. Anyway, I am a radical leftist and I don't want a world government. I am also a socialist, for the most part. Hell, I think the US is too big as it stands now. I think that once a country gets past a certain size, it is impossible for it to fully function as a legitimate democracy. In regards to Chomsky, I agree with Otto that it is silly to dismiss him as making you stupid. For one, he made some major breakthroughs early in his carreer in linguistics study. Secondly, his job is to be an annoyance. He is not always right and can be a little extreme, but he is a valuable asset to a any nation that wants to preserve democracy. Also, he is consistant in his voice. He got a lot of grief once for writing an introduction about free speech that was published in a book by a French scholar who claimed that the Holocaust never happened (people, of course, thought Chomsky was agreeing with the guy's conclusion). This, despite the fact that Chomsky is Jewish and found the book to be repulsive. Once I heard that about him, I could never dismiss him outright. Anyway, who cares, right? Ooh, look, a shiney object, gotta run...
rimmy: GATT, and now the WTO, are pretty much irrrelevant. They were designed to stop trade wars. They do not. When the the protectionists in the US thought that our export balance with Japan was subpar (idiots, that balance gives us political control over Japanese foreign policy!), we requested that Japan "voluntarily" purchase more American-made cars. Eventually, Japan prevented future confrontations by moving many manufacturing plants to the US, creating the odd situation in which most Japanese cars sold in the US are made in the good ole USA. The GATT and WTO have some use for faciliating trade... but it's more in-line with providing a cocktail party a few times a year for leaders to get to gether and settle things more easily.
BTW The The Bilderberg Group which is secretly ploting to take over the world in the view of many who fear the 'one world government' is primarily a conservative group, headed by European monarchs, industralists, and former big-wig conservative powermongers.
here Enduring what? Molly Ivins - COMMENTARY Despite the comments of the attorney general, the freedoms of Americans are threatened by recent government actions. By George, we need honest, reasoned debate around here and not fear-mongering, so anyone out there who suspects Attorney General John Ashcroft of being a nincompoop is clearly aiding terrorists and giving ammunition to America's enemies. Ashcroft says so, and if that's not reasoned debate, what is? Under the high standards of reason set forth by Ashcroft, we are allowed to present `correct' information (those who present incorrect information, like some people in government, erode our national unity and diminish our resolve) as to what the attorney general is up to. While Operation Enduring Freedom continues in Afghanistan, enduring freedom is not looking so good here at home - and like the A.G., I would be the last to encourage people of goodwill to remain silent in the face of evil. Here is some `correct' information about enduring freedom: * Ashcroft's urpily named PATRIOT Act permits government agents to search a suspect's home without notification. In J. Edgar Hoover's day, this was known as "a black-bag job." As Nat Hentoff reports in `The Progressive:' "A warrant would be required, but very few judges would turn a government investigator down in this time of fear. Ashcroft's `secret searches' provision can now extend to all criminal cases and can include taking photographs, the contents of your hard drive and other property. This is now a permanent part of the law, not subject to any `sunset review' by Congress." Many of our tough-minded brethren, to whom it is perfectly clear that less freedom equals more security, have dismissed complaints by saying, after all, these measures only apply to non-citizens, and besides, the worst parts of it will sunset in four years. Wrong. This means you, fellow citizens - if you happen to know someone whose brother-in-law rented a garage apartment to a guy who knew someone who might be a terrorist. Benjamin Franklin said, "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety." But I'm pretty sure Franklin didn't mean to aid terrorists, so please don't report him to the A.G. * The expansion of wiretapping authority to computers simply puts privacy in cyberspace in jeopardy without any concomitant gain to law enforcement. According to James X. Dempsey, deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology, neither Congress nor the media have put all this together to see the breadth of the dragnet. The government can now delve into personal and private records of individuals even if they cannot be directly connected to a terrorist or foreign government. Bank records, emails, library records, even the track of discount cards at grocery stories can be obtained on individuals without establishing any connection to a terrorist before a judge. According to the `Los Angeles Times,' al Qaeda uses sophisticated encryption devices freely available on the Internet that cannot be cracked. So the terrorists are safe from cyber-snooping, but we're not. * Ashcroft and Co. essentially say, "Trust us, we won't misuse these new laws." But in fact the FBI and the CIA have repeatedly violated such trust to spy on everyone from Martin Luther King Jr. to Jean Seberg. That's why the checks were there to begin with. * According to an analysis of PATRIOT by the Electronic Freedom Foundation, the government made no showing that the previous powers of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to spy on U.S. citizens were insufficient to allow them to investigate and prosecute acts of terrorism: "Many provisions that, instead of (being) aimed at terrorism, are aimed at nonviolent, domestic computer crime. In addition, although many of the provisions appear aimed at terrorism, the government made no showing that the reasons they failed to detect the planning of the recent attacks or any other terrorist attacks were the civil liberties compromised by the bill. The government may now spy on web-surfing of innocent Americans, including terms entered into search engines, by merely telling a judge anywhere in the U.S. that the spying could lead to information that is `relevant' to an ongoing criminal investigation." The person spied on does not have to be the target of the investigation nor is probable cause required. * The military tribunals idea is so bad that the administration has been backing up on it steadily, especially since Spain has already announced it won't turn over its al Qaeda suspects to a system so violative of international standards. The Spaniards, who have been fighting Basque terrorists for years, are not noticeably "soft on terrorism." * Lest you think our only attorney general does not care about rights, I point out that when it comes to the 550 he has "detained" since September, without evidence, without charges, without identification and without legal counsel, he so fully respects the Second Amendment rights of these non-citizens that he has reversed the Justice Department's previous stand to forbid the FBI to check on its gun-purchase records in order to protect their privacy. Also, Ashcroft fully believes in the rights of the unborn. The born are on their own. Molly Ivins writes for Creators Syndicate. 5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045
spain is backing away from turning over al qaeda members because they say the military tribunals are in violation of international standards. "hello, pot..this is the kettle!" these guys wouldn't know due process if it bit them in the ass. WE ARE AT WAR!! These are NOT U.S. citizens!!!! boy, please enlighten us all as to due process and the standards of courtroom procedure for the accused...i'm sure Kuwait has the presumption of innocence!! By the way..the next media liberal who quotes the famous Ben Franklin quote will certainly make me puke!! They've been arguing against that line for years when it was used in the context of the Second Amendment -- a right secured FOR U.S. CITIZENS -- a right they would deny U.S. citizens!!!! Now they're throwing it out left and right in an effort to protect the rights of those our government is concerned might be aiding in the attack of our nation (after we already lost over 3000 just a couple of months ago in an attack). I'm trying hard to understand that logic, but I simply can't grasp it. Oh, my gosh..the govt can see my bank records?? and my purchases at Randall's??? yeah, like that's a big novel surprise She criticizes the way the Justice Dept has more deference with the judicial branch now....but she fails to mention that is a result of a measure passed by our own elected Congressmen. A resolution that passed with only one voting against it, if I remember right (please correct me if I'm wrong). But the entire mess gets laid at the feet of the administration. Here's the dilemma -- what if, because of these measures the justice department has taken, we've successfully stopped a terrorist attack that would have killed 1,000 people?? we'd never know that. but if these measures weren't taken, and there was a terrorist attack, subsequent to Sept. 11th, we'd all be blaming the administration for not taking the necessary action to prevent it. we'd be questioning the ability of our government to deal with the "masterminds" of third world nations. we'd be living in absolute fear, right now...if the attack were perpetrated against the airline industry again, we'd probably see the death of that segment of our economy quite quickly....rippling drastically into other areas of the economy as well. I'm tempted to quote Jack Nicholson from "A Few Good Men," but I won't. It's enough to merely say that the government as a whole right now is walking a road no other administration has ever been forced to walk. yes, we've been at war before...but no, we've never felt so threatened by outside forces before...we've never thought of ourselves, the citizens, as legitimate military targets...but that's exactly how these jackasses think of you.
MadMax: Either draw a frickin' brightline around what's permissible or what's not... or admit that you'd rather live in a spy-state on the level of the GDR in exchange for an iota of more safety. I understand certain temporary compromises in exchange for greater security. But you don't appear to impose any limits on this. So please answer two questions (please be specific): 1. Where do you draw the line in the exchange of civil liberties for security? 2. At what point does the answer "just trust us, we promise you we wouldn't take your liberty unnecessarily" no longer satisfy you?
<b>haven</b>: Is that all the credit you can give these "fascists" in the White House? You now accuse them of providing only "one iota" more security for all their gestapo techniques.
RR: I think I asked two valid questions. I think I'm finished with the argument, until they're answered. Otherwise, you guys can just infinitely prevaricate.
I reiterate: # of civil liberties any US citizen has lost to date in this war: 0 # of civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution to non-citizens in either peacetime or wartime: 0 There's just no substance to this argument.
treeman: Why reiterate something that's already been rejected? You can't just reassert information that's been rejecting as a conclusive proof. Even if you think you're right, it's pointless!
