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Do you feel patriotic?

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  • I'd like to add that Article IV of the US Constitution says that the supreme laws of the land consist of the Constitution itself and any treaties ratified by the USA.

    The USA ratified the UN Convention Against Torture all the way back in 1994.

    Therefore, all the pro-torture folks are obviously anti-Constitution...

    (not that it matters if you have to debate them, but still...)

    Was the treaty actually ratified fully? It's actually pretty rare that the US ratifies treaties.
  • Cremlian said:

    The guys who have been defending torture like Rep. Peter King should really STFU or they are going to get a trial out of it. I mean if they just played it cool this story would eventually die off.

    These people need to be forever linked to their support for torture. Especially in light that one of the things done was "rectal feeding."

    So...we need to keep track for posterity, those who feel that sodomizing people is the act of an American hero.

    That can be the theme of Michael Bay's next movie. Anal Rape for Freedom
  • Apreche said:

    I'd like to add that Article IV of the US Constitution says that the supreme laws of the land consist of the Constitution itself and any treaties ratified by the USA.

    The USA ratified the UN Convention Against Torture all the way back in 1994.

    Therefore, all the pro-torture folks are obviously anti-Constitution...

    (not that it matters if you have to debate them, but still...)

    Was the treaty actually ratified fully? It's actually pretty rare that the US ratifies treaties.
    United Nations website says yes.
  • So...we need to keep track for posterity, those who feel that sodomizing people is the act of an American hero.

    As long as you don't want to marry them later, because then you're gonna have a problem.

  • Apreche said:

    I'd like to add that Article IV of the US Constitution says that the supreme laws of the land consist of the Constitution itself and any treaties ratified by the USA.

    The USA ratified the UN Convention Against Torture all the way back in 1994.

    Therefore, all the pro-torture folks are obviously anti-Constitution...

    (not that it matters if you have to debate them, but still...)

    Was the treaty actually ratified fully? It's actually pretty rare that the US ratifies treaties.
    However, one thing we haven't ratified is the Rome Statute founding the International Criminal Court, which means we're out of its jurisdiction for a war crimes investigation without an order from the UN Security Council. So basically it's unenforceable. :P
  • Apreche said:

    I'd like to add that Article IV of the US Constitution says that the supreme laws of the land consist of the Constitution itself and any treaties ratified by the USA.

    The USA ratified the UN Convention Against Torture all the way back in 1994.

    Therefore, all the pro-torture folks are obviously anti-Constitution...

    (not that it matters if you have to debate them, but still...)

    Was the treaty actually ratified fully? It's actually pretty rare that the US ratifies treaties.
    United Nations website says yes.
    We signs lot of treaties that never get voted on by the senate.
  • I was under the impression all treaties the US signed had to be ratified by the senate to take effect.
  • I was under the impression all treaties the US signed had to be ratified by the senate to take effect.

    Hence, we have signed treaties that never actually take affect or bind us in any way...
  • Rym said:

    I was under the impression all treaties the US signed had to be ratified by the senate to take effect.

    Hence, we have signed treaties that never actually take effect or bind us in any way...
    ;)
  • edited December 2014

    I was under the impression all treaties the US signed had to be ratified by the senate to take effect.

    Yes, but the convention on torture treaty was ratified by the Senate in 1994. It was originaly signed in 1988.
    Post edited by Dragonmaster Lou on
  • I'm just far too disgusted with the world right now. Making these little corrections and removing euphemisms has been a small comfort.

    Shorter CIA official José Rodriguez: “This administration does not have the fortitude and the courage to [anally rape] terrorists,”

    Shorter Dick Cheney: "The notion that the committee's trying to peddle, that somehow the agency was operating on a rogue basis, and we weren't being told or the President wasn't being told [about sodomizing detainees], is just a flat out lie,"

    Shorter Mitch McConnelll: The fact that [threatening to rape the mother of an inmate and chaining another guy to a wall until he died of hypothermia] developed significant intelligence that helped us identify and capture important (al-Qaeda) terrorists, disrupt their ongoing plotting, and take down (Osama bin Laden) is incontrovertible.

    “The United States of America is awesome, we are awesome,” she said. “But we’ve had this discussion. We’ve closed the book on it, and we’ve stopped [locking detainees inside a coffin and then placing insects inside of it].
  • This summary of Cheney's recent appearance on Meet the Press:

    http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/12/dick-cheney-defends-the-torture-innocents/383741/?single_page=true

    CHUCK TODD:

    Is that too high? You're okay with that margin for error?

    DICK CHENEY:

    I have no problem as long as we achieve our objective. And our objective is to get the guys who did 9/11 and it is to avoid another attack against the United States.

    If it cannot be compared with 9/11, if it is not morally equivalent, then it should not be verboten.

    That is the moral standard Cheney is unabashedly invoking on national television. He doesn't want the United States to honor norms against torture. He doesn't want us to abide by the Ten Commandments, or to live up to the values in the Declaration of Independence, or to be restrained by the text of the Constitution. Instead, Cheney would have us take al-Qaeda as our moral and legal measuring stick. Did America torture dozens of innocents? So what. 9/11 was worse.
  • Fox and friends using the Sydney hostage scenario to defend the US torture program? WTF
  • edited December 2014
    This is what I was talking about. Republicans do not actually believe in American exceptionalism as they say they do.

    But honestly if you phrase the question, a terrorist is about to blow up your family and you need to get the information out of him. Would you torture him? A vast majority of people would say yes. You have to change how the conversation and the question are presented to actually get people to realize they shouldn't want their government torturing people.
    Post edited by Cremlian on
  • Maybe the question should be:

    "A terrorist is about to kill your immediate family. If we torture the one we caught we can stop your immediate family from being killed but it may also lead to five attacks on your extended family tomorrow that we can not stop. If we do not use torture we can not guarantee we can stop them but we can guarantee that the rest of your family will be safe."
  • Steve, that would blow the mind of the Average American. I don't think they can handle that kind of thinking.
  • Steve you need to be a writer for the next installment of 24, I just read your post in Jack Bauer's voice.
  • Back in 2007 when all the Republicans vying for the Presidential nomination were competing over how many times they would double Guantamino and how willing they would be to torture prisoners, a certain blogger named John Cole sarcastically remarked the GOP field was close to saying they were prepared to skull f-k a kitten in order to save American lives.

    Not much has changed in the past 7 years.
  • Is there a way to start a new country, without guns, violence and poverty with the best medicine, education and internet connection; then be patriotic to that one?
  • edited December 2014
    Dazzle369 said:

    Is there a way to start a new country, without guns, violence and poverty with the best medicine, education and internet connection; then be patriotic to that one?

    The current conflicts on earth are largely in part to the lack of new unconquered lands and lack of war for the sake of conquering. For most of human history when people living in the same place had differences they had quick, yet horrible resolutions. Sometimes genocide. Sometimes people like the pilgrims would run off and colonize a new land. Sometimes war to conquer another land and inhabit it. The end result is that people ended up living with others like themselves.

    Not that we should do any of those things, but we need a new answer. Instead, we have people with differences living together without war. In one sense it is beautiful and awesome. In another sense, it's awful. Rather than resolve the differences we have a never ending internal struggle in which pressure builds, but can never be released fully. Everyone is angry or oppressed all the time.

    I think one thing that can truly save us would be he ability to move to cyberspace or outer space. Either Ghost in the Shell or Gundam would happen. I'm hoping for both simultaneously.
    Post edited by Apreche on
  • Dazzle369 said:

    Is there a way to start a new country, without guns, violence and poverty with the best medicine, education and internet connection; then be patriotic to that one?

    I was thinking that it would probably be easier to just find a poorer country, and charter a independent city state.
  • Dazzle369 said:

    Is there a way to start a new country, without guns, violence and poverty with the best medicine, education and internet connection; then be patriotic to that one?

    Welcome to all of human history.

    "Fuck, this place sucks. These people suck. Let's go find a new place!"

    "Hey look, there's some land."

    "Yeah, but there are some people there."

    "Do they look like us? Do they talk like us? No? Fuck 'em."

    "YAY LAND!"

    Repeat literally forever.

    I actually think massive massive transportation infrastructure improvements could really assist a lot of problems. All life that I know of actively attempts to self-organize into groups that share characteristics. If an individual is separated from a population of similar organisms, it can either adapt to the group that it does find or it can die.

    If we can make transportation trivial, self-organizing becomes easier.

    Of course, then nobody ever has to adapt, and we have walled-off pockets of groups of people who lack diversity.

    But hey, racism and xenophobia works for Scandinavia, right?

    Fuck everything.
  • RymRym
    edited December 2014


    I actually think massive massive transportation infrastructure improvements could really assist a lot of problems. All life that I know of actively attempts to self-organize into groups that share characteristics. If an individual is separated from a population of similar organisms, it can either adapt to the group that it does find or it can die.

    If we can make transportation trivial, self-organizing becomes easier.

    Of course, then nobody ever has to adapt, and we have walled-off pockets of groups of people who lack diversity.

    This is exactly what human thought, culture, and the overall zeitgeist are doing today thanks to the Internet. The "rivers" and "mountains" of the Internet world are language and politics, not physical barriers.

    Beyond them, every culture is colonizing the infinite sea of data and infinitely fractionalizing.

    Post edited by Rym on
  • I think holding people accountable to their actions will solve a lot of problems. Putting only qualified individuals in positions of responsibility will solve a lot of problems.
  • Rym said:


    I actually think massive massive transportation infrastructure improvements could really assist a lot of problems. All life that I know of actively attempts to self-organize into groups that share characteristics. If an individual is separated from a population of similar organisms, it can either adapt to the group that it does find or it can die.

    If we can make transportation trivial, self-organizing becomes easier.

    Of course, then nobody ever has to adapt, and we have walled-off pockets of groups of people who lack diversity.

    This is exactly what human thought, culture, and the overall zeitgeist are doing today thanks to the Internet. The "rivers" and "mountains" of the Internet world are language and politics, not physical barriers.

    Beyond them, every culture is colonizing the infinite sea of data and infinitely fractionalizing.

    Ah, the net is vast.
  • Dazzle369 said:

    I think holding people accountable to their actions will solve a lot of problems. Putting only qualified individuals in positions of responsibility will solve a lot of problems.

    Who determines the criteria for being considered "qualified?"

    That's the fundamental problem. It's a process that can not but be corrupted.
  • Rym said:

    Dazzle369 said:

    I think holding people accountable to their actions will solve a lot of problems. Putting only qualified individuals in positions of responsibility will solve a lot of problems.

    Who determines the criteria for being considered "qualified?"

    That's the fundamental problem. It's a process that can not but be corrupted.
    Yes. How with internet do we fix this?
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