Ranch.
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Even non-millionaire narcissists can be quite adept at attracting entourages around them.
It’s their maximum priority, and they’ve had a lifetime to practice.
It’s kind of like talk radio, except live. There’s always somebody ready to listen.
[quote=“LurkingGrue, post:119, topic:95200, full:true”] I really would want to sit down with GWB now and have a beer with the guy and tell him that I take back the shit I used to say about him. I may not agree with his politics but I take back the comments about stupid.
[/quote]
Whereas I would be more concerned with bringing some justice for the large numbers of people that he was responsible for torturing.
A BBQ fork seems like a good tool to begin that process with.
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I don’t agree with @LurkingGrue that GWB wasn’t that bad, but I also disagree with you: He ought to be a customer of the ICC, torture is not a solution.
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I mean I don’t like his politics or think they were good but the idea that he was an idiot is a thing I would take back now.
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Just because someone came along who was even worse, that doesn’t make W’s flaws somehow more tolerable.
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I am not so sure. just because there are even more idiotic politicians he’s not suddenly on the sane side of the spectrum.
@euansmith said it rather nice, and Bush II was not a “good” US president
This says a lot about the difference between Canada and the US; that Obama was a "good" American President, and Harper was a "bad" Canadian Prime Minister.
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And then someone should grab Obama and we can get him for the drone strikes of US citizens, right?
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Whether or not the victims are US citizens really isn’t relevant to me.
An airstrike can, potentially, be ethically justified. Torture, OTOH: never. It’s indefensible.
Every US politician and CIA operative who went along with Shrub’s torture regime should die in prison; given that this is never going to happen, I’m willing to view vigilante action as the next best option.
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It is to me since they didn’t get a trial and were, quite literally, murdered by a stroke of the president’s pen and then directly targeted with a drone. No judge was involved in this. Now let’s ponder Trump doing this with drones to US citizens he doesn’t like. There is literally nothing stopping him from doing it. Obama already did it (and at least one of the citizens was a minor as well who literally did nothing to deserve being killed in any sense).
Due process is due process. At the very minimum bar, US citizens should get a show trial with a jury before we give them the death penalty. I’m pretty sure this is considered a fundamental for American citizens since the Revolution.
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it refers to elevating people, not making them the objective best, rather naming them as the best from among us to represent us, for now.
Your post has a lot of argumentum ad dictionarium in it. Dictionaries are diction guides, right?
I’m interested in your POV, but I don’t see how complaining about how other people misuse words, and then concluding that the winning party in a modern election process is a regime the same as a hereditary peerage or autocratic monarchy or junta… I mean, I can play with words too. But wordplay isn’t reality.
There may be no true Scotsmen democracies, but as as voting member of a constitutional republic, I’m pretty content that the corruption of the word isn’t mapped onto the affect of the system. Maybe it’s that I feel at least somewhat well represented? Maybe it’s that I’m a grown up and realize I don’t always get what i want?
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[quote=“enso, post:134, topic:95200, full:true”]
It is to me[/quote]
for me this is one of the more disconcerting attributes of the US legal system: that somehow foreigners on foreign soil are fair game
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Entirely true.
If someone advances foreign interests in return for personal gain, that’s bad. After all, that’s different from a government “doing the right thing” instead of putting “America first”.
I objected to the use of the word treason because of the inherent black-and-white friend/foe world view it implies.
Okay. Here’s the most specific thing I found:
Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.
Very specific?
Levying war might be specific enough, but there’s a second part connected by ‘or’, so if that second part is vague, the whole thing is vague.
“adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort”
I haven’t the faintest clue what “adhere”, “enemy”, “aid” and “comfort” mean in this context.
These words sound like they could be interpreted to cover quite a lot; this fits with the (comparatively) frequent use of the word “treason” in hyperbole in American politics.
American citizens on foreign soil being legally murdered without trial is rather more troubling from the point of view of an American citizen looking at our legal system and government.
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But our legal system does based on precedent and Court decisions. Other governments have much broader definitions of treason. Try looking up theirs.
I think you’re arguing that the American one is vague when it is actually specific. If you aren’t doing those things, legally, you’re not committing treason.
For example, if it doesn’t involve the enemies of the United States, say you’re doing something internally to protest a state law, it is, by definition, not treason and you can’t be charged with treason just because an official doesn’t like it. Treason is generally limited to levying war or colluding with those that are in the USA.
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Oh boy, where do I start?
Ok, first, I believe any population is entitled to choose whatever political system they want to live under, key word being ‘choosing’. That entails being aware what eactly i is we are talking about. Hence my focus on what words mean.
Democracy means power of the people. When you are told all your life that the system you live under is a democracy when it clearly isn’t, after every possibility of it to occur having been carefully eliminated, then you’re not given a choice, you’re manipulated in accepting what might not be to your best interest.
When was the last time the head of state/government of a modern so called democracy came from the working-class ? What was the average income of most MP’s in those countries? What was it 20, 50 and 100 years ago (for those that existed)?
The elective system is one that inevitably leads to parties, and those in turn favor people with the appropriate network and networking abilities (both are necessary). In other words it will always end up in a system where the privileged classes hold and keep power in their hands. So, not quite hereditary peerage, but not so far from it.
There might be ways to avoid that despite an election-based system, but no way in hell is such a system going to be put in place if those already in power have any say in the matter.
As to the idea of accepting that you don’t always get what you want… Well, I didn’t keep track of you expressed opinion on the matter, but I can’t help but notice that the overwhelming majority of commenters here clearly don’t accept the idea that Trump won the election and, to go back to the topic of the article, feel that ignoring the law in such circumstances is perfectly acceptable. That reminds me of something about kettle and pot and all that…
To a non-American, the implication that non-American lives are not worthy of protection is much more troubling.
It’s how you end up with unjust horrors like this:
But if we have to bring it back to a narrow focus on American interests: the rest of the world sees this happening, and we also hear how Americans discuss it.
When y’all do things that make it obvious that non-American lives are seen as second class (at best), we notice. When the US media responds to US war crimes by ignoring the victims and focusing on “how will this affect our troops?”, we notice. Etc.
Why do non-Americans tend to treat USAdian claims of ethical superiority as offensive nonsense? Because of shit like this.
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No offense but as an American, I’m first concerned, when it comes to the law, that American laws are followed and citizens are treated as we should be legally. That’s the duty of the legal system my people are citizens within.
That isn’t to say the lives of non-citizens don’t have value but if our laws don’t even protect the lives of citizens, they are certainly never going to help non-citizens.
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I hear what you’re saying.
What I’m saying, is that whenever you consider a question along the lines of “why do they hate us?”…
…this. This is why you’re hated.
Want to reduce terrorist attacks on the US? Stop casually slaughtering foreigners. Could you really blame Sergio Hernandez’s parents if they took vengeance on their son’s murderer and the organisation that protects him?
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