I am a true patriot

[sobo]

patriotic

[Fairweather]

I too would say that where a broadcast network presents a program as "history," knowing it to be false, somebody should probably go to jail - or certainly pay a fine.

 

I want to ask you to reconsider this, Matt. I expect it from the likes of a radical partisan like Crux, but do you really think it is wise to go down this road? If so, how far? Shall we force all documentaries on The History Channel to pass a government "accuracy" review? How far back shall we go? Are the alleged but unsubstantiated affairs of Kennedy, FDR, Taft, and others fair game? How about Nixon - who's gonna separate truth from lie about that administration? Shall we jail Micheal Moore for his 9/11 conspiracy nonsense if it ever makes it to public airwaves? You, of all people, should realize how dangerous this idea is. The only democratic way to counter inaccurate history is with truth - not by banning it.

Edited June 6, 2007 by Fairweather

[KaskadskyjKozak]

Maybe you don't agree, but I feel that the American public must have access to accurate information, including the history of our "war on terror," if there is to be any real democracy. And that is with the small "d."

 

And just who will decide what is "accurate" - you and other liberal ilk? Sounds like Stalinist-style information control. Fuck that.

 

[Crux]

So because Chavez says it, you believe it? Do you really believe that RCTV was calling for Chavez' overthrow "on a daily basis"? I believe they called for his overthrow during the 2002 coup after his thugs killed 18 street protesters in cold blood. But you called for similar government action here for a benign ABC docudrama. If anything, you are even more contemptible than the good comrade. I think you are confused about freedom, Mr Crux.

To be sure, I don't usually follow the politics in Venezuela. When I do, I find the political troubles in my own country are of much greater concern. Your assertion, Fairweather, that I've ever called for my government to kill protesters in the streets is bizarre. To say the least, your reckless posturing detracts from your credibility as a reporter on Venezuela. Frankly, I don't think you've got much to report on, but simply prefer to bare your fangs at the distant Venezuelan upstart rather than feel the bite of disgrace delivered by your own president.

 

Anyway, the stands that I've taken in this forum on the issues related to equal opportunity laws for political access to air time in our own country are just that -- positions based on my understanding of the law, not on my personal ideology. That said, the laws are not what they used to be! From 1927 to 1997, federal rules required broadcasters to give equal opportunity for airtime to qualified political interests. Also, in 2005, the Senate introduced a bill to put statutory teeth into the annual spending order that forbids government manipulation of the news. Despite unanimous initial support, I've learned that law (S. 226 of the 109th) did not pass. Consequently, any laws I thought applied to "fairness" in broadcasting any time in this century are actually laws that did not exist -- therefore, I must agree there is no legal basis for incarceration of anybody, ABC executives included, for any of the events that you now refer to.

 

To be clear, and contrary to my previous understanding that was based on the 70 years of administrative law that was tossed out by Clinton in 1997, I understand it is perfectly legal for any of the broadcast executives you've mentioned to give any millions of dollars in air time and production support to one political party, while denying access to another. More specifically, it was apparently also legal for the presidency to receive $47 million in propaganda favors from a broadcaster (ABC/Disney) in exchange for an unprecedented extension of a priceless copyright held by the broadcaster -- such as appears to have occurred with none other than that for Mickey Mouse in exchange for said benign docudrama. All in all, it's an impressive bit of political work, and I don't see any case for imprisonment of anybody -- even though my "ideology" most assuredly is unaltered.

 

No crime committed, no time to be served -- it's that simple. But I favor a return to the equal opportunity rules that were in place until 1997, and believe the practices I've attributed to the Bush administration and others are unethical and damaging to our democracy.

 

[Fairweather]

Fairywhiner, chill out. I've never advocated censorship, and your statements to the contrary are hysterical distortions of the truth at best. I have, on the other hand, advocated the silence of an attacking pit bull by means of shoving my arm down its throat. The later advocacy, of course, might be another that a rabid dog such as yourself will contort personally, and so your intensified snarl and jerking at the chain will be expected.

 

 

 

Posturing?

[ivan]

And just who will decide what is "accurate" - you and other liberal ilk? Sounds like Stalinist-style information control. Fuck that.

 

hey, i agree! the gov shouldn't be regulating information on the tv any more than in newspapers, magazines, books, the internet, etc. hard-core porn on nbc at 10 a.m. followed by the neo-nazi hour be damned...people can think for themselves, and if they can't, then what the fuck's the point of trying to make sense out of the world anyway?

[mattp]

 

I want to ask you to reconsider this, Matt. I expect it from the likes of a radical partisan like Crux, but do you really think it is wise to go down this road? If so, how far? Shall we force all documentaries on The History Channel to pass a government "accuracy" review? How far back shall we go? Are the alleged but unsubstantiated affairs of Kennedy, FDR, Taft, and others fair game? How about Nixon - who's gonna separate truth from lie about that administration? Shall we jail Micheal Moore for his 9/11 conspiracy nonsense if it ever makes it to public airwaves? You, of all people, should realize how dangerous this idea is. The only democratic way to counter inaccurate history is with truth - not by banning it.

 

Fairweather, you of all people should be careful about you arguments. I'm pretty sure I could run a couple of searches and find a dozen places where you have posted that some anti-war or anti-bush post from myself or others who you dislike were "treasonous," or where somebody posted a hostile note about Bush or Cheney and you suggested the secret service ought to show up and take them away. In thread after thread, I have written that I recognize your position, or that of some other right winger, but I disagree with it. I have said you are wrong, or maybe deliberately twisting things, but I have never said you have no right to post. You, on the other hand, have often said others have no such right.

 

As to accuracy in news media, you are clearly right that it would be difficult to define a standard, and it would be equally true that the government could abuse any discretion it might have to enforce such a standard. However, without any standard or with the erosion of any standards that previously existed, we are suffering complete disinformation on issues like the Iraq war, global warming, you name it.

 

Our present government routinely lie to the press and worse. They manufature entire stories and series of stories and carefully plan how to feed them to the media. They have repeatedly lied to Congress (a felony under US law), and they lied to the entire world about what they were doing in Iraq and Cuba and how they were doing it (if this is not an International war crime, it should be). Where news media executives, whether at FOX or NPR willingly went along with this, they failed to serve their public trust and there should be fines. Where they manufactured a false documentary and broadcast it as history, the same is true.

 

I'm not sure I could make a case for jail time, but civil fines would certainly be warranted. I don't know the laws of media broadcast, but I would not be surprised if there are current regulations or laws that would suggest that broadcast licenses should be revoked for falsely repoting "news."

[Dechristo]

I am posting on this thread that has drawn the super-important opinions of Very Important People that I may be recognized as having rubbed elbows with the uber-enlightened.

 

In fact, this thread has drawn the creme de la creme in thought from so many luminaries that I've asked my friend, Robert Smiegel, to add his contribution:

 

 

 

"This is a great thread...

 

 

 

...FOR ME TO POOP ON!!!1

[tvashtarkatena]

Arguing the legal minutae of this administration's constitutional actions is a lost cause. Elimination of habeus corpus for unlawful enemy combatants, presidential interpretation of the definition of torture, prosecutorial immunity for torturers retroactive to 1998, admissability of evidence gained through torture, even if gained in third party countries (Military Commissions Act 2006), new definition of Domestic Terrorism that can easily be applied to political enemies (USA PATRIOT act 2001), illegal wiretapping of international communications, Extraordinatry Rendition...it's all beside the point.

 

This argument is really about whether you want to keep or give up your way of life. If we want to hold on to our damn fine way of life as the oil runs out, and we all know it's running out, America is going to have to keep kicking ass. That means torture. That means killing. Lots and lots of killing. Fortunately, that is something we've invested a shitpot of money learning how to do really well. We've certainly got the hardware. It's our software that's, well, too soft.

 

Those of us who'd prefer not to ride our Chinese bicycles to Washington Pass every weekend will probably agree that we'd better off dumping the cumbersome Constitution altogether and just going along with strong leaders who've got the will to get the job done. This idea of moral leadership will sink us down to everyone else's third world level. It's a jungle of limited resources out there. We either eat from the scrap pile, like the rest of the world, or eat those who must. If we want to be the latter, why allow a two century old piece of parchment, penned in a bygone era of low population, isolationism and plenty, stand in our way?

Edited June 6, 2007 by tvashtarkatena

[Fairweather]

Fairweather, you of all people should be careful about you arguments. I'm pretty sure I could run a couple of searches and find a dozen places where you have posted that some anti-war or anti-bush post from myself or others who you dislike were "treasonous," or where somebody posted a hostile note about Bush or Cheney and you suggested the secret service ought to show up and take them away. In thread after thread, I have written that I recognize your position, or that of some other right winger, but I disagree with it. I have said you are wrong, or maybe deliberately twisting things, but I have never said you have no right to post. You, on the other hand, have often said others have no such right.

 

 

Please back this up, Matt. I can think of only three instances where I argued a post should be censored: Dr Flash Amazing, Viendra7, and Trashtarketena - all of whom, seperately, have issued not-so-veiled threats and/or advocated "putting a bullet into the head" of the president. Wouldn't you say their comments were just a bit outside the bounds of civil political discussion? Beyond that, I challenge you to back up your claim.

[JosephH]

Manufacturing intelligence

False statements to the UN

False statements in the State of the Union

Going to war under false pretenses

Unconstitutional wire taps

Extraconstitutional rendition

Torture

 

All felonies.

[Fairweather]

Manufacturing intelligence

Probably true for Cheney/Rumsfeld. Blair too?

False statements to the UN

That's a felony?

False statements in the State of the Union

Let's arrest every ex president in US history. Again; not a felony.

Going to war under false pretenses

What statute? Shall we arrest congress too?

Unconstitutional wire taps

Not. I believe overseas communication is exempted. I may be wrong, but I thought all this secret warrant business was cleared up by a Supreme Court ruling last year? Regardless, there is no constitutional right to privacy....even if there ought to be.

Extraconstitutional rendition

Torture

Abu Graib? OK. It's being handled. But you likely refer to more nefarious examples, and the jury's still out. Do you really think that these practices were tabled during virtually every other conflict in our nation's history? You served in Vietnam as part of an army under Johnson and Nixon that practiced these very same things. Does that make these two "war criminals"? Does that make you complicit? Certainly not.

 

All felonies.

 

You're just plain wrong.

[ivan]

so is there a point to be made in this thread now? if there is, it seems only that "bush is a bad president" - who here disagrees with that?

 

the rest is just dithering and static

[Fairweather]

I originally stepped in to lend support to Scott, but it looks like he done run off on me. Damn that private!

[tvashtarkatena]

Not. I believe overseas communication is exempted. I may be wrong, but I thought all this secret warrant business was cleared up by a Supreme Court ruling last year? Regardless, there is no constitutional right to privacy....even if there ought to be.

 

YOu are wrong. Under the legal principle of specificity, procedures for obtaining wiretaps for international communications fall under the Foriegn Intelligence Surveillance Act FISA (the more specific law), not under the Congressional Authorization to 'all means necessary' of 2001, as the administration argued. FISA requires warrants to be obtained; something the administration did not do (among other things) in its secret spying program.

 

The ACLU won a lawsuit against the NSA in 2006, which resulted in a Detroit district court judge ruling that the program is illegal under FISA as well as the 1st and 4th amendments. There has been no Supreme Court review or ruling on the case, nor has there been an appeal of the ruling on the part of the administration.

 

Congress did make some minor amendments to FISA last year to streamline the process of obtaining warrants and extending the time limit for obtaining those warrants to 7 days, but the administration finally agreed to operate under FISA guidelines after they lost the above suit.

 

 

 

 

 

Abu Graib? OK. It's being handled. But you likely refer to more nefarious examples, and the jury's still out. Do you really think that these practices were tabled during virtually every other conflict in our nation's history? You served in Vietnam as part of an army under Johnson and Nixon that practiced these very same things. Does that make these two "war criminals"? Does that make you complicit? Certainly not.

 

When speaking of Extraordinary Rendition, he's not referring to Abhu Graib, which was (from a paperwork standpoint, at least) handled by normalizing the Army Field Manual with Geneva Convention prohibitions on torture. That applies only to our uniformed military. He's referring to an ongoing program kidnapping, secret prisons, and torture (much of which occurs in third party countries under our supervision) by the CIA and it's contractors. After testimony by victims of this program, the administration finally admitted to it's existence last year. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 still allows the president to enterpret the definition of torture as outlined by Article 1, Section 9 of the Geneva Conventions. It also provides immunity, retroactive to 1998, for those who may face charges for torturing at any point in the future. We now know quite a bit about this program because of those victims of mistaken identity who've been released from this program and gone public with their stories. This program violates our extradition treaties, international law, the laws of the countries where kidnapping occurs, and several previous U.S. statutes banning torture, not to mention our constitutional principles of due process. Appropriately, it has become yet another lightning rod for an administration whose actions have repeatedly stained our national honor and destroyed any credibility we once had in improving human rights around the globe.

 

You appear know as little about the law as you do history. The crimes of previous administrations in no way justify the crimes of the present one. And actually, members of this administration could easily be tried as war criminals considering how aggregiously they've violated international human rights law. They will not, of course, because we've got bigger guns.

 

Edited June 6, 2007 by tvashtarkatena

[mattp]

Actually, Fairweather, where somebody in a political thread writes something about wishing somebody would execute the president I would say that is fully within the norms of political conversation on this site - where trolling and outrageous statements are "derigueur" to the point that I doubt the Secret Service felt the need to arrest your three treasonous fellow posters. Believing that fluff and puffery are what they are and that there is a reason that political figures are not given the same protection from slander that private citizens are, I'd say such banter is in fact far more acceptable in my book than combining personal attacks with going out of your way to try to intimidate somebody by using their full name, while jealously guarding your own anonymity, or posting threats of violence such as are found here on a regular basis.

 

As to your prior condemnation of myself or others as treasonous for criticizing our government or suggesting that our military efforts were doomed to failure, I will admit I cannot without spending more effort than I care to undertake find any such quote of yours. I used the search function to look for Fairweather and "treason" and I got so many hits I didn't want to wade through them all. I'm not sure what I was doing wrong.

 

Perhaps I am confusing you with someone else, but it seems to me I remember your arguing on numerous occasions that calling the President a liar was "out of bounds" without proof that he in fact did not believe what he said, or your arguing that one's saying the U.S. was on the wrong side of this war was anti-patriotic and undermined the morale of our troops, etc. I think you've used the term "treason" in some of these arguments. If I am mistaken, and you have actually argued all along that I and others on this site have a right to publicly criticize the government and condemn an immoral war, or that Mr. Kennedy or Mr. Moore have the same right, please forgive me.

[Fairweather]

Matt, you're a real piece of work. Treason. First, you claim as fact I have used this descriptive toward you and others on this board, then you backtrack and say that maybe I haven't since you can't recall an instance and are too lazy to back up your accusation. I too typed in "Fairweather" /"treason" and came up with those hits you mention. Nowhere...NOWHERE, asshole, do I accuse you or anybody on this board of treason. There are references to Ann Coulter's book entitled "Treason", bits about the Frontline Story you'll recall, and suggestions that Clinton's illegal sale of missile technology to China may have qualified for this tag.

 

http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/search

 

 

You, sir, are a liar. Have I called you a tool, angry old man, dupe, misguided, idiot, hypocrite? Absolutely. Especially the hypocrite. Get over it.

 

As for using your full name whilst hiding behind my own username, do you recall a friend of yours who also shared the name "Matt" and was just a bit more than hysterical back when I used my full name on this board? I thought so. And is there really anybody here who doesn't know your full name? Hell, you link to it in your profile, so please spare me the crocodile tears.

 

http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showprofile/User/417

 

http://www.seanet.com/~mattp/climbing

 

Grow a pair - and stick to the facts.

 

 

 

 

[mattp]

Asshole? F*ck you. Last time you denied you had posted something (suggesting nuclear attack), I found it in less than five minutes.

 

Liar? Nope. I indicated I was “pretty sure” I could successfully run the search engine because I knew that I had not tested such search engine. However, I believe you HAVE made the argument I am suggesting and if I had more time to read old posts I could find several examples. In either case, I clearly stated that I could not now find an example, so I apologized.

 

Do you really maintain that you have never argued that it was wrong for myself or some other liberal, or Michael Moore, or anybody else to undermine the war effort? Seriously? I'm not talking about saying that you disagreed or that we were misguided, but that simply making the argument was wrong. Do you really argue that you've never said it was wrong to publicly state such a position? I'm surprised, but maybe as you did in this thread I have simply wrongly associated you with the positions taken by others on your side of an argument.

 

As to your use of my full name, when there was no reason to do so, while hiding yours? As I recall, the second or third time you “quit the board forever” was when there was a thread where I predicted on page one that you would get upset and use my full name to try to anger me, and then freak out if I used yours. That exact thing happened on page two or three, and I pointed out that you should check page one. Should I fire up the search engine to find it?

 

If you want to argue politics, lets argue politics. The rest of it is BS and you know it.

[Fairweather]

 

 

 

Do you really maintain that you have never argued that it was wrong for myself or some other liberal, or Michael Moore, or anybody else to undermine the war effort? Seriously? I'm not talking about saying that you disagreed or that we were misguided, but that simply making the argument was wrong. Do you really argue that you've never said it was wrong to publicly state such a position? I'm surprised, but maybe as you did in this thread I have simply wrongly associated you with the positions taken by others on your side of an argument.

 

 

Classic MattP. Now you're trying to change the premise of the argument. Claiming that your opponent's arguments are wrong is what Spray is all about! But that's a far cry from calling someone treasonous or claiming their speech rights should be suppressed by government. When are you going to adopt some above-board tactics here, eh? Slimy.

[mattp]

Nope. Same argument same Fairweather. Maybe it is time for you to quit again....

 

... or shall we get back to politics and leave the "you of all people" out of it? When you want to debate history and policy, I enjoy your company!

[Fairweather]

If I recall, Matt, on several occasions you have professed a fetish for wearing women's undergarments. It is absolutely true, yes. A quick search of "women" and "MattP" reveals almost a dozen hits going back 5 years. Now, I didn't really have time to read each one, but I'm quite certain about this. There's no denying it. I would like to take this opportunity to apologize if I am wrong.

 

 

[mattp]

Are you suggesting that there is something wrong with wearing women's undergarments? You bigot!

 

In all honesty, do you think I should just come out with it and reveal what I'm wearing beneath the parka in my avatar picture?

[Crux]

Not safe for work.

[ivan]

seems like the situation is setting up perfect for a grudge-fuck

 

so was anyone gonna disagree w/ the "bush is a bad president" thing then? the argument would seem then to be over just how bad he is then...

[mattp]

The discussion started with a question whether Cindy Sheehan is a patriot or a deranged sikko, and Fairweather and I got around to arguing whether the news media should be required to tell the truth. Bush is the worst president we've had since god-knows-who has been ceded long ago.