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The SmartCar link isn’t working — looks like the first part of the text for the next bullet point ended up in it.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=323_1187518073
I would love to see a SMART car hit a Suburban head on with each doing 55. I don’t think the little tin box would look as good…
“Torture hasn’t worked, even in cases where the government insists it has.”
Yes, but as long as “24″ remains on the air, most people will continue to think it does.
You say that “Torture hasn’t worked”, and I’m sure that there have been cases where this is true. But we know for a fact that torture has worked in at least some cases. American POW’s in Vietnam (most notably John McCain) say that torture made them divulge relevant information. So it’s inaccurate to say “torture doesn’t work” in general.
If you libertarians don’t support waterboarding / torture to get intelligence information from bad guys then what DO you support? What would you guys do differently?
COME ON!
President Bush will also end up being regarded by history as a fool for not cutting off the flow of Saudi money into Islamic institutions in this country, and invading two week countries surrounding the third most powerful country in the Middle East (Iran). Most of the Muslims I have met who came to this country to get away from the extremists have said that Bush should shut down any Islamic institution that has gotten any meaningful amount of money from the Saudis since chances are it is just a Wahabist front.
Here is an interesting link.
Justice is not blind; however it is, sexist, skewed, unfair, manipulated, vague, at the whims of prosecutors, judges, and police.
http://www.theweeklyvice.com/2009/01/two-sheboygan-teens-may-prove-that.html
AD was a very good show. But, am I the only person in America that thinks 24 absolutely sucks? I swear it could be written by 13 year old boys continually coming up with explosion scenes they think are kewl. 24: Worst-cliche-filled-show ever. Then again I don’t have any Toby Keith CDs either.
I’m not sure I trust a Vanitry Fair article to accurately portray the effects of torture.
@ Tesla (#5)
“If you libertarians don’t support waterboarding / torture to get intelligence information from bad guys then what DO you support? What would you guys do differently?”
The question of torture isn’t just “Will I do A to get B?” It is “Will I do A to get B (and B sometimes has value, sometimes not) and it will cost me C (as well as D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, and W) and expose everyone to more torture?”
So, how do libertarians propose you get intelligence? You’d be surprised to hear that libertarians aren’t the target of bad guys that often. Those of you with seriously retarded foreign policy are though, and I wish you luck with your moral dilema.
In other words, don’t walk into a biker bar throwing punches and then ask me how to avoid a fight.
Here’s a better link for the smart car into the wall:
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=323_1187518073
I miss Arrested Development so much. Especially my favorite “never-nude”.
Or, look at number 2 from 2 1/2 hours ago.
@Telsa #5….”If you libertarians don’t support waterboarding / torture to get intelligence information from bad guys then what DO you support? What would you guys do differently?”
I DO know that it really doesn’t leave you much room to bitch, moan, gripe, and complain about OUR guys getting tortured now does it?
As far as doing things differently… I would probably start by NOT invading other countries on false pretenses which would pretty much make the whole issue a moot point.
Consumer Product Safety Commission bans books for the under-twelve crowd. Too much lead? Or too many dangerous ideas?
http://www.wo.ala.org/districtdispatch/?p=1322
What they don’t tell you about the SmartCar video is that it took them 10 minutes to get it up to 70 MPH.
Boyd, you are not alone. 24 is not on my playlist either. I can’t believe it has lasted this long.
“…libertarians aren’t the target of bad guys that often.” Thats true but quite often we are the target of dumb-asses.
So the roll cage survived the impact. Thats good. It will aid in identifying the bodies.
Fact: The Smart can hit a wall at 65 mph and the doors will still open.
Fact: The Smart will spin like a pinball if it hits another moving car.
The smart is not a tin can that will collapse, this it true. But F still equals MA and when your Smart meets a regular sedan (or worse a truck) in an intersection you are a goner. Not because you get crushed, no, but rather because you receive massive internal trauma from deceleration and centrifugal forces.
There was video a while back of some Germans that ran a Smart into an E-Class in an frontal offset crash, simulating what happens in an intersection. The Benz barely slowed down while the Smart was actually tossed into the air, landing on it’s roof, spinning.
But the doors still opened!
Whether torture works or it doesn’t there is, at absolute best, a very serious question of whether the Bush Administration tortured people for propaganda purposes. We know they used techniques designed for that purpose and then they used the information gained from those techniques as propaganda to justify their invasion of Iraq.
People who argue against an investigation into Bush’s crimes, all seem to presuppose that the torturing issue was always performed as a last resort to “protect americans” but how can anyone deny that there is not a very viable alternative motive? That is even assuming that motive and intentions matter, which they don’t legally. But how can we not at least investigate?
tesla, if you read the article, or expose yourself to the arguments of military and intelligence officials who oppose torture, you wouldn’t have to sound like you can’t even conceive of a single alternative to gathering intelligence (as though the whole world of espionage and intelligence begins and ends with torture.) To answer your question, something that continues to come up in those arguments is rapport building, which has been show to work – at least empirically – as an interrogation technique. This technique has long been outlined in the army field manual.
Regardless, the lack of me being able to personally offer an alternative to torture does not magicaly make torture legal, morally right, or even effective. Sorry.
Frank @ 16, I’ve been harping on the CPSIA for a few months, now. The CPSIA is such a poor piece of legislative work, it promises to drive thrift stores, booksellers and handmade toy and garment makers into bankruptcy.
Many of us have let our legislators know the depth and breadth of the CPSIA’s stupidity and they, to a one, have replied with, “what? No! That’s not what we meant!”
Yeah well, sparky. It’s not what you *meant*, it’s what you *wrote* that’s gonna destroy us. Thanks.
@Tesla
As Nick T said what you have to do it gain rapport with the person you are questioning. Us good police techniques. Get them to trust you. Us all the information that you have about the person to figure out what he will be most likely to respond to. For example in the article they found a Morrocan guy who was involved in the 1998 Embassy bombings in Africa. They did not torture him. The talked calmly and rationally with him. They found out he was supporting Al-Qaida to get money for medical treatment for his wife. Once they had this information they were able to make a deal with him. He gave up good information on several others who are now in jail.
If torture works so well, where the fuck is Bin Laden?
Yeah, that still might not morally or legally justify torture, but at least it would be some proof about the supposed efficacy of using “enhanced interrogation”.
#3-
‘If you libertarians don’t support waterboarding / torture to get intelligence information from bad guys then what DO you support? What would you guys do differently?’
what ‘bad guys’? do I get to pick? I’d start with dipshit reps staging electric car photo opps and trolls advocating torturing other humans…
Torture (along with just about everything else associated with this ‘war’) is criminal and should be treated as such.
@Boyd (#11)
I think you were making your point better in the first part of your post, about the cost of torturing. I have to take issue with what you wrote later, though–
“You’d be surprised to hear that libertarians aren’t the target of bad guys that often.”
Glib/snotty reply: Go tell that to Ayan Hirsi Ali.
Or, real reply: [I'm not going to address the "that often" part of your comment beyond the observation that terrorist attacks of the well-planned, kill-lots-of-people sort (since that's what's being discussed here--preventable, know in advance attacks) seem to be a rare occurrence for everyone, so pretty much any moral or political philosophy could claim that.] I don’t think it matters whether libertarians are the targets or not. About 2 years ago, while I was doing consulting work in Germany, the commuter train that I rode several times a week was the target of an attempted bombing. Thankfully, the bombers were inept and nothing happened. I’m a libertarian, and I seriously doubt that I, specifically, was the intended target. But I am 100% certain that if the bomb had gone off, the laws of physics wouldn’t have set themselves aside on my behalf due to my moral convictions–I would have been just as injured or dead as someone with differing beliefs who happened to be standing in the same spot.
Had I been killed, I’m sure that it would have been a great comfort to all concerned that the bombers only meant to kill/maim “those of you with seriously retarded foreign policy”–which in most cases means any poor schlub who happens to be part of, or merely living in, a country/society whose government may have done something to piss off someone willing to kill lots of people over it.
If you want to claim that if a majority of people in this country were libertarians, or simply that if our government stuck to libertarian principles, there would be a far smaller chance of terrorist attacks against America/Americans, or that some of the gov’t's effed-up policies are making it worse, and not better, I think you and I can agree. But unless you are truly living apart from all others in society who don’t share your views, sidestepping a question by asserting that our views somehow insulate us from danger won’t cut it. I’m sorry to tell you that it isn’t true.
“You’d be surprised to hear that libertarians aren’t the target of bad guys that often.”
Which is why the right to bear arms is not such a big deal to libertarians. We’ve got nothing to fear, as long as we avoid starting fights in biker bars.
@ Zinnen #25
“…sidestepping a question by asserting that our views somehow insulate us from danger won’t cut it. I’m sorry to tell you that it isn’t true.”
That is not my premise. Let me illuminate: I am no more insulated from terrorism than I am from all the other horrific penalties from my non-libertarian country (financial ruin, SocSec ponzi-scam, right-to-die moral crap, eminent domain abuse, public school failure, unlimited national debt, targeted when traveling, etc).
Terrorism is a problem with US foreign policy, not libertarianism. And, THE fundamental cause of terrorism against the US is US foreign policy (which is very un-libertarian). If there is any sidestepping of a question, it is when non-libertarians continue to ask libertarians how to solve problems solely created by non-libertarians (hence the bar fight analogy). Instead, THEY should have to answer the question of why they are the target of terrorism (and yes, THEY should look at the last 100 years, not the last 10).
Sorry to hear about your German train incident. I’ll tell you sometime about when two 110-story buildings almost fell on my head while I was working in NYC.
You partisan libertarian guys are pretty predictable. I don’t think we should be torturing every Achmed and Abdul but it is an option that should be left on the table depending on the circumstances. [To stave off the mindless criticism I'm not a conservative, never voted for Bush, didn't support the war in Iraq, don't want us to have bases in foreign countries, etc.]
When asked about how to deal with terrorism most libertarians always say “stop meddling in other countries”. That would be nice, I agree, but it’s not something you can apply retroactively to deal with your problem today. I guess it’s a luxury that libertarians have, always being on the sidelines and all.
Resentment with the GOP is very high. People are getting very fed up with bailouts. Ron Paul did amazingly well for the size of his campaign and relative paucity of media coverage. His core message about governing from the Constitution and a limited government really resonated with people (surprisingly a lot of young people). It was his bat-shit crazy statements about terrorism and the response to it that scared people off.
The point is, Libertarians could actually get elected if they injected a little reality into their foreign policy.
Bronwyn, I’ve been harping on the CPSIA for months now too. I wrote Dick Durbin and got a “I’m so wonderful for protecting your kids from lead!” form letter back. Most people I know who wrote their legislators got the same thing – self-congratulatory crap. I wrote back and told him he was a douchebag (not quite verbatim, but it was a close) and he should start reading the things people write.
On the plus side, some of the liberal-leaning parents I know have learned a thing or two about unintended consequences now that they are going to have to start shutting down their etsy stores…
@Tesla #28
Well-thought out policy should be predictable. Thank you for the compliment.
I don’t speak for all libertarians, but I’ll provide my answer to how to deal with the terrorists targeting America.
First step: Admit that you are Texas-sized fucked for the idiocy of past foreign policy. Just like the financial collapse from really bad credit loans for things of no value, you won’t be able to tap-dance away from paying the bill for past mistakes. You have no choice about paying that bill, just how you handle yourself while you pay it. But, Americans don’t want to admit that so they’ll compromise capitalism with bailouts that will bankrupt the country and wars that will slaughter millions.
I’ll get back to you with step two after you inject that bit of reality into your foreign policy.
Re: Ron Paul…I really don’t think Americans (a majority of whom lined up to support Bush/Cheney/Rummy…but most now deny it) are qualified to declare Paul’s terrorism statements as “bat-shit crazy”. Americans are several disasters away from being ready for reality.
I’ve never understood the “my god how dangerous” the Smartcar generates. It’s at about as safe as anything else in its class (Yaris to Fit, say), and quite a bit safer overall than say, an Aveo; not to mention incomparably safer than a motorcycle.