ashw_justin

Someone's got some splainin' to do...

The 'climbs' on that bolted boulder by the bridge at exit 38 are pretty bad. And isn't there some 20' climb off to the right of it with like 1 (maybe 2) bolts?

Sad. Misdirected grief. Mockery of the justice system.

No, I said that the Patriot Act is controversial. It is controversial because it is redundant with pre-existing laws and provides the government with oversimplified means of condemning people based upon their thoughts rather than their acts. It's interesting to consider why, if we can already prosecute them for the actual crimes that they committed, it is necessary to prosecute them for what we think their intentions were? This brings law into a murky place, where one can be prosecuted specifically for their thoughts and beliefs. It would be more appropriate to give them a stiffer sentence for the actual physical crimes committed, than to penalize them for what goes on in their heads. This brings up the obvious comparison to hate crimes, the laws against which one could argue are just a vague way of basically imposing stiffer sentences (appropriate in many cases), with the unfortunate side effect of crossing the line into the realm of condemning opinions rather than acts.

And by the doggie analogy I was referring to the fact that they were busy bringing some relatively non-lethal extremotreehuggers to justice while much more dangerous terrorists were busy committing 9/11.

Look, I didn't say they weren't terrorists. Just really whimpy ones. Prosecuting them is the right thing to do, and we should be so lucky that they weren't as dangerous as the domestic terrorists in other countries right now. There was no intent to kill, for example.

But we have always been at war with Islamia. WAR IS PEACE. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.

That explains radical religious beliefs pretty well, except I wouldn't call it lame, I would call it civil, assuming that the beliefs represented direct violations of human rights.

Well I believe the men of the country could protect their rights to their manhood through conventional participation in representative government, by voting down any ballchopping legislation. Or if that wasn't possible, hopefully we could appeal to the judicial branch to protect our human rights. There are certain mechanisms in place to prevent a fundamentalist takeover.

The difference between these hypocrites and ball-choppers is that only one would be violating human rights.

They broke well-established, uncontroversial laws (the Patriot Act remains controversial) and will be punished for these crimes. But in terms of terrorism, this was like winning the special olympics of terrorism. (No offense to the disabled.)

Well we wouldn't be having this discussion at all if people weren't continually confused by the difference between Muslim and theofascist. It's all in the execution. My neighbor has a right to believe that all men should be castrated, as long as they don't actually violate anyone's human rights to retain their jewels. And even then, it's not the belief that they should be condemned for, but the act. I'm not even sure why we are talking about Islam itself, except that it is a convenient (yet incorrect) jump in logic.

What, I said 'if.'

But you're also being ignorant if you believe that all Muslims are violent radical fundamentalists. Violent (human-rights-transgressing to be more accurate) radical fundamentalist [x] are the problem. Doesn't matter what 'x' is.

"The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons." But whatever the literal definition of 'terrorist' was, 'we' have made it pretty clear that it can only be perpetrated by countryless rogues. If you're the U.S. gov't you call your violent coersion 'the defense of democracy,' or if you are a loser country, 'war crimes.' So now that we have that out of the way. Isn't it cute? They think they caught some terrorists! Like when your dog can't find the real stick and just brings something back to please you. Gooooood G-men. Good boy. Now drop it and go get the real ones, mmkay?

...want to prevent you from skiing or driving SUVs.

Another reason why we shouldn't abandon the U.N.

I can't watch those damn plugin videos on linux so I was forced to read. Are you referring to this bit?

Yes, definitely an 'interesting' take on the anti-Israel theme. We have good reason not to trust them. But crazy... I don't think they are crazy. Here is actually a decent listen. There is some rarely heard, rational dispute from the Iranians (@ 7:30). Disagreeable perhaps, but I'm not sure if 'nuts' is the right word. UN General Assembly votes on Holocaust Denial

I don't know, Bush's public dumbness could be a perfect cover for unpopular behavior. Who, me? (ps. not claiming he let anybody go, hell how would I know)

What purpose does it serve to assume that Iran isn't rational, unless you've already decided to war on them? Surely, we would have tried to understand Iran before concluding that it is not possible.

Right but it's not whether countries are allowed to cop out, but how best to motivate them. I know, let's invade two bordering countries, point nukes at 'em, and try to convince the world that they are evil. Cuz friends is overrated.

That's what brought up the "harboring terrorists" dilemma, right. How do you get a country to go after internal criminals that are just as likely to bite the hand that feeds them? One could draw parallels to the Colombian drug trade and our activities there. Although the FARC doesn't seem to want death to the U.S. so much as a armed revolution to gain control of that country.

Oh yeah, they hate us alright. Of course there's a difference between celebrating, and conspiring to commit a terrorist act on U.S. soil. I think the only way this is ever going to work is if we figure out how to get the latter ones without having to declare war on entire countries and peoples.

Assuming that Washington knew something that we didn't, they should have just been straightforward about it. Sure, it's easy to get support through lies and propaganda, but that just hurts our country. Unfortunately "we have to disarm Iraq" was not the strongest battle cry. In my opinion it's with extreme disrespect to the people of this country that the official battle cries went more like: "why do they hate us" "we have to win the 'war on terror'" "you're either with us or against us" None of which, when you think about it, actually mean anything or describe anything concrete. But all of which have led to shameful, hypocritical, anticooperative foreign policy.