US Bashing

[seedload]

Hippies get a bad name...

Just to be clear, I like hippies. My brother is a hippy - lives on a communal ranch, teaches poetry, likes flowers and stuff. When I blame hippies, I am not assigning intention, just outcome. No one who can be legitimately called a hippy intended for drugs to become such a scourge. None of them anticipated the increase in potency of the drugs. No hippy, high and laughing while watching "Reefer Madness", could have anticipated that drugs of today would make the exagerations of that film come true. No hippy knew that free and open sex would eventually result in people dying from incurable diseases. No hippy thought though the ramifications to our society from an underground economy of drugs.

It just happened. Good intentions can go wrong. They often do.

[MSimon]

The Iron Law of Prohibition is a term coined by Richard Cowan which states that "the more intense the law enforcement, the more potent the prohibited substance becomes." This is based on the premise that when drugs or alcohol are prohibited, they will be produced only in black markets in their most concentrated and powerful forms. If all alcohol beverages are prohibited, a bootlegger will be more profitable if he smuggles highly distilled liquors than if he smuggles the same volume of small beer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_law_of_prohibition

==

We see that with heroin. In 1970 a bag of 5% pure heroin cost $30. Today a bag of 80% to 90% pure heroin costs $4. Less than a 6 pack of beer. Adjusted for inflation that is a factor of 600 lowering of price.

Another Drug War success story.

========

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/200 ... sease.html

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/200 ... ation.html

===

As I have said recently - the conservative solution is to return to a situation where drugs are legal. The radical solution was to make them illegal. It is not working. Unless financing criminals and terrorists is your objective. When in which case the laws are working just fine.

Did I mention how drug prohibition is ruining the black community?

Read it and weep. Or jump for joy. Depending.

http://www.issues.org/13.2/courtw.htm

If a policy is creating serious social ills and is not solving the problem it was intended to solve what is the rational course of action? The conservative solution would be to return to the prior policy. The radical solution is to redouble the efforts.

So are you a conservative or a radical?

===

One little point I left out. Our drug war is destroying Mexico.

http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/200 ... order.html

Another little side benefit.

===

Drug prohibition is what I call a faith based policy. No matter the evidence against it some people have faith that it will some day produce the desired results despite almost 100 years of failure.

That is a heck of a lot of faith.

[seedload]

Seedload (if that IS your real name!), you keep on arguing over and over that everybody thinks it's OK only to bash the US for torture. That's just not true. Anyone who bashes us for torture also bashes everybody who does it. Why wouldn't they? Just because you feel persecuted somehow, apparently, doesn't change that. Nobody is saying that we're worse than Saddam Hussein. Nobody. Just that we're worse than a theoretical nation that does not use torture.

Mike, I think you are misrepresenting my position. I am so put off by this that I feel the need to be a little defensive here. This is the sum of what I have said on the topic of torture in this thread.

On the topic of torture, I made the following two posts prior to any defense of the US over torture:

Torture is bad. The US should not engage in it. Either should the British. Whatever either of our countries has done it is not nearly as pervasive and disgusting as what happens all over the world. Does that make it right? No. We should continue to make all efforts to end it.

Huh? Are you arguing torture is a necessary part of our policy in Iraq and in our war on terror? We need to torture? I don't think you mean that. Maybe you are just on auto-argue. ...
I suspect that torture is not necessary to make this plan work. In fact, I suspect torture undermines the plan as it tends to make more enemies and turn off more friends.

Regarding my later defensive position on US torture, I was responding directly to Alex. I in no way kept "on arguing over and over that everybody thinks it's OK only to bash the US for torture." EVERYBODY is a pretty bold statement. I was talking to Alex.

Now, remember that Alex's first post in this thread about US Bashing said this:

We've given you the benefit of the doubt time and time again, dodgy dictator after dodgy dictator.

Just please don't ask us to give America the benefit of the doubt when you lie in the UN about WMDs and torture your prisoners...

That was the first thing Alex said in this thread. So, when responding to Alex and remembering my own condemnation of torture earlier, I felt comfortable saying the following to him:

Or is it only appropriate to comment on US torture? Is it only appropriate to use the way back machine when talking about the US? Is it only appropriate to dismiss the explanations when talking about the US?

No, if it the US, any action of an individual is used as condemnation of the nation. Crimes committed by a few become an indication of our policy. Forget that we condemn it ourselves or criminally procecute the perpetrators. Forget that when we actually talk about policy, we are talking about waterboarding not about mutilation. Forget that we are having this debate between ourselves, on waterboarding, we are actually debating and there are multiple sides. Forget that both candidates for President were against waterboarding. Nope, it is the US. We TORTURE. We are no better than Saddam.

... and this when ALEX accused me of being in denial I responded like this:

I am not in denial. The unorganized torture of prisoners that initially went on was horrific. I am disgusted by my countries ineffectiveness in stopping this and am further humiliated by our efforts to sweep it under the rug.

I am not a fan of waterboarding. But, as Chris Rock says, "I understand".

I fail to see where you have made an argument that the US has done anything different or worse than EVERY other country mentioned including the UK and France regarding torture. You are basically saying that everyone does it to varying degrees and that it is always bad. If that is true, then I fail to see how torture could be a good reason to hate the US more than any other country. Maybe you should ask yourself, "Am I just playa' hating?"

... because it seemed like he was the one in denial. His first statement is that the US doesn't deserve to be given the benefit of the doubt BECAUSE the US tortures.

Now, obviously with that little dig about my nickname, you seem to have an issue with me. That is all good. The above is what I actually said. If you can interpret what I actually said any way other than I don't like torture, abhor that the US dabbles in it and hate that other countries embrase it, yet find it a completely inadequate and hypocritical reason for Alex (not everybody) to single the US out for bashing, then go right ahead.

best regards,
Charlie

BTW - 'seedload' is a work term that refers to the process of loading the initial permanent encryption key into one of our encryption devices.

[Mike Holmes]

Charlie,

I use that "If that's your real name" comment on lots of people who use pseudonyms online. It's not really a dig on you, but on the online culture of using pseudonyms to remain anonymous. Which is really the main thing that poisons discussions online.

And that's not to say anything specifically about you. Random comment, spurred by a strange name.

In any case, I really am Mike Holmes (Michael C. Holmes on the certificate), and anything I say here I would say to anyone I met in person. Just in case anyone was wondering if anything that I say is exaggerated. If you want my phone # to talk via that communication mode, PM me for it (I'm not going to post it where the phone monsters can pick it up, I get enough calls for tele-sales as it is).

Nothing you've done would have me assume that you're intellectually dishonest, Charlie. Again, random timing.


On the subject, I'm not attributing any argument to you that you haven't made. I'm not saying you're pro-torture or somthing. All I'm saying is that you - and not just you but others as well - keep implying that by bashing the US on terror that the basher implies somehow that the US is the only state that does this, or that other states are somehow not culpable for torture that they perform.

And all I can say is that I don't think that's true of Alex, or anyone else who bashes torturers. In fact Alex has responded in the affirmative to my assumption that this is the case.

The subject of the thread is asking why people bash the US. And if your response is "It's irrational, because other nations do what the US does" well I'm afraid that's got a serious hole in logic. If that's not your argument, then I'm not sure precisely what your point is, I'm afraid.

It is your presentation of the opposing side's argument as:

Nope, it is the US. We TORTURE. We are no better than Saddam.

that I am discrediting. Nobody is saying that. It is you saying that Alex has "singled out" the US for criticism. If I say that China is bad for human rights violations, have I also "Singled them out?" Does that mean that there are no worse countries? Or that I believe that only China does poorly on human rights? No. A comment made affirmatively about one subject does not imply a negative on subjects not commented upon.

If your argument is that it's OK for the US to do it because other nations do it, that's the logical fallacy of Tu Quoque ("You yourself do it"). Again, two wrongs, don't make a right.

Mike

(Edited to apologise for the horrific dangling participle)

[Mike Holmes]

And to reply to the comments about drugs (at the risk of double posting), all I can say about crime rates is that they're decreasing. While drug use, paradoxically increases. Huh. In fact, more and more arrests today are simply possession of the drugs in question. Rather than violent or property crimes.

I'm not saying that drugs stop crime. But they don't neccessarily cause a lot of crime, either. Poverty does that perfectly well all on it's own.

The only "New" drug that I can think of is Crack Cocaine, which is really just potent cocaine (see Simon's post). And that one is more than 30 years old. Oh, sure, drugs come and go in fads, but the Methamphetamine fad is not new, and it is, again, a case of concentrated forms of drugs that we've had for a century. Ecstasy is modified Meth...

Mike

[seedload]

Mike,

If I am sitting at a table with Hitler and Reagan, I would come off silly telling President Reagan that he is a war monger for invading Grenada.

If I am sitting in the dugout with George Brett and Barry Bonds, it would come off stupid for me to single out Brett as a cheater for using a little too much pine tar.

Getting more on point, if I were discussing Martin Luther King, I would come off a little bit off base to say that I should not give him the benefit of the doubt because he slept around. A lot of people sleep around. He did it more than some and way less than others. Using that as a basis for contempt is absurd given the importance of the man and given the context of his accomplishment.

Alex said, "Just please don't ask us to give America the benefit of the doubt when you ... torture your prisoners"

Sorry that my debating skills are not up to snuff. I apologize for my form. But really, this thing about torturing prisoners is way off base as a reason for US bashing. And really, in context, the fact that the US does not engage in torture to nearly the degree that some and even most countries have IS of substance when discussing it as a key explanasion as to the reason for the focussed bashing of my country.

regards

[Mike Holmes]

If one's belief is that all torture is morally bad - and I'm one of those whackos, right along with McCain - then putting it in any relative terms isn't going to ameliorate me.

If you want to make analogies it's like you've said, "We don't rape people nearly as often as other people do. So why are you picking on us?" Or, if you're saying, "Look at all the good we do!" that would be like saying, "We only rape folks a little, and consider the good things we do... don't we get a pass?"

Morally wrong is not a relative condition where it's OK to do a little so long as you're not as bad as somebody else. Saying that MLK's ideas about equality were bad because he slept around would be illogical, because that's an Ad Hominem attack, and says nothing about his ideology. But saying that sleeping around is bad is another thing entirely, and you can feel free to condemn the man on those grounds. He doesn't get a free pass to do wrong in one way, just because of the good he did.

Now, what we consider to be morally reprehensible may differ, and that may well be where the disagreement lies. But let's at least argue logically.

Mike

[ravingdave]

Well, Dave, you were the one who made the extreme supposition (argumentum ad absurdum). That, in fact, MSimon was advocating that we ignore justice because there are bad cops. And now you claim that he is making the abusurd case? You went there first.

Point to M.

I prefer to look at it as Reductio ad absurdum, and I assume you are talking about this quote:

So I guess your answer is that since the cops are liars, everybody goes free ?

Really ?

The qualifier is guess , but a qualifier is hardly needed. MSimon's point was that he thought the reputation of the police as liars should trump the evidence.
Yes, i'll admit the conclusions are absurd, but they are not my conclusions.

The debate should be whether or not the evidence in the OJ Simpson case was overlooked by the jury. Did they have reason to have a reasonable doubt? If not, what's your argument specifically? Which bit of evidence was incontrovertibly true?

Overlooked by the jury? You mean like a deliberation or something?
Gee, I dunno, how much deliberation can you do in like an hour ?

THAT is my first argument against their having performed due dilligence.

Face it, the prosecution did a bad job in presenting their evidence, and the police did a bad job at handling it. Whether or not it was planted or not, if they had taken more care, then things would have been different.

It is my opinion that nothing could have stopped an aquital except trying the case in the original venue. The prosecutor's case was irrelevant.

Does this place an impossible standard on police? Well, the question is whether or not you want them to catch 100% of criminals. That's the unreasonable standard. It would be nice, but we simply have to admit that it's impossible and that sometimes the bad guys will get away with their crimes.

Yes, the process is more important than the results. At least in the legal system, whereas in science, if a process doesn't yield consistently correct results, they get a new one. Of course lawyers run law, and scientists run science. One group is making progress, the other ? Not so much.

When you find some perfect people, let me know, and I'll rethink my argument.

Note that they did a good enough job that OJ at least lost the civil case. Which means that at least some small amount of justice was done (assuming he actually committed the crime).

Do you remeber this case ? The Criminal case featured mostly Black Jurors from Los Angelos, many whom have since expressed opinions that indicated they simply refused to convict a brother, while the civil case was in Santa Monica with a mostly white jury. The vast majority of whites watching the trial on television were certain of OJs guilt, while the vast majority of blacks were certain of his innocence. People are afraid to speak about this because it is an ugly truth, however it remains the truth.

People find it easy to judge on these issues. It's easy to act like you were there, especially in the OJ case where the media covered it so thoroughly. But you weren't in that jury, and watching it on TV is NOT the same thing. Don't be so sure that you wouldn't have decided the same way, not having been there.

Mike

Well the jurors on the Civil case did see the evidence and decide he was guilty, and some of the jurors on the criminal case have now admitted they think he was really guilty. I believe I can be forgiven for coming to the same conclusion based on the evidence I did see on television.

I believe my original post was to the effect that OJ was aquitted in spite of the massive amount of evidence indicating his guilt. I was using it as an example of how defective is the process we use to convict people. The Guilty sometimes go free, and the innocent sometimes get convicted.

Some believe the system worked in the case of OJ Simpson, (MSimon) I say this case demonstrates the worst of what's wrong with it.






David

[MSimon]

Some believe the system worked in the case of OJ Simpson, (MSimon) I say this case demonstrates the worst of what's wrong with it.

I don't disagree with that at all. In fact I totally agree. If the police get a reputation for dishonesty it ruins the system.

Police should not be testilying and prosecutors and judges should not let them get away with it.

Did I mention forensic labs "adjusting" results? State expert witnesses lying?

The Duke Lacrosse case was full of all the above. And those guys had the money to defend themselves. Think about what happens to some poor kid who has nothing except a public defender and no budget to do independent investigations.

Worst of the worst? Maybe. Or maybe just standard practice applied to the wrong people.

The general attitude is that everything is mostly fine because the alternative is just too horrible to contemplate.

For instance - the railroading in death penalty cases in Illinois. Or torture to get confessions - again in Illinois. But for sure it is limited to Illinois. Ya gotta have faith.

==

Or how about drug courier profiling. Here is what can be considered suspicious:

http://www.cass.net/~w-dogs/lcour.htm

1. Large or late model cars with large trunks - GM most popular.
a. Intermediate size also used.
b. Occasionally a smaller car will be involved.
2. Older car in top running condition.
3. Vans and pickup trucks with camper tops also commonly used.

===

And drug dogs? They seem to be very sensitive to any compound with an acetyl radical in it. Now it could be heroin or it could be aspirin.

Or suppose the dog sniffs your money for signs of cocaine. A test was done at the Federal Reserve and you know what? The chances of any used bill having detectable amounts of cocaine on it are on the order of 98%. Why? Well one bill used for snorting the stuff leaves traces on the counting machine. Then the machine passes those traces to all subsequent bills passing through the machine. Neat huh?

===

Unless you have gone out of your way to study this stuff you have no idea how bad it is.

No doubt that tainted my attitude in the OJ case.

I read a recent stat that showed that something like 60% of Americans don't trust the police. That is 7 people on the average jury. The odds that a jury picked at random (they are not) has no person on it who mistrust the police is .0017%

What would the trust level have to be to get a 50% chance that there is no juror who mistrusts the police? Around 94.5%. I'd say the police have a ways to go.

[Nanos]

Practically all the burglars/muggers I speak with tell me that they rob to feed their habit, thats not really changed over the years.

More drug gangs are around though nowdays, (More like 'Its a crime' PBM every day...) though strangly I notice drug dealers beginning to move out of poor neighbourhoods and into the middleclass areas as their wealth increases..

(And those formerly of such neighbourhoods, moving abroad to invest/spend their money on a new life..)

Here crime rates are on the up, especially gun crime (gee, you'd think with guns being outlawed for the average citizen here in the UK, all them criminals would just hand in their pieces...), and the government does its best to find new ways of making sure the numbers aren't counted..

I keep getting told its safer every day in my neighbourhood, but the empty shell casings, and dead bodies I have to step over to go shopping just don't convince me otherwise..

[seedload]

If one's belief is that all torture is morally bad - and I'm one of those whackos, right along with McCain - then putting it in any relative terms isn't going to ameliorate me.

"The choice in politics isn't usually between black and white, it's between two horrible shades of gray."

- Lord Thorneycroft

If you want to make analogies it's like you've said, "We don't rape people nearly as often as other people do. So why are you picking on us?" Or, if you're saying, "Look at all the good we do!" that would be like saying, "We only rape folks a little, and consider the good things we do... don't we get a pass?"

That doesn't sound like an analogy to me.

To be fair, Mike, are you arguing that the rapes and disgusting sexual humiliations that happened were matters of US policy. Should a nation be responsible for the actions of a few? Are you saying that the United States supports rape? I just want to understand what you believe.

Morally wrong is not a relative condition where it's OK to do a little so long as you're not as bad as somebody else. Saying that MLK's ideas about equality were bad because he slept around would be illogical, because that's an Ad Hominem attack, and says nothing about his ideology. But saying that sleeping around is bad is another thing entirely, and you can feel free to condemn the man on those grounds. He doesn't get a free pass to do wrong in one way, just because of the good he did.

It is not an Ad Hominem attack. The topic is US Bashing. I am saying that using one example that is indeed morally wrong is not sufficient justification for general condemnation of a nation, especially given the context of that nation's contributions to the world. My analogy is right on point. Picking one trait of Dr. King and using it as justification for general hate is not logical.

Now, what we consider to be morally reprehensible may differ, and that may well be where the disagreement lies. But let's at least argue logically.

Mike

The funny thing is that we agree that torture is reprehensible. Again, our only disagreement is whether what happened justifies an anti-US sentiment.

Alex saying, don't ask for the benefit of the doubt when you torture is equivelent to me saying to Dr. King, "Don't expect me to listen to you on the subject of equality when I know you have slept around."

And, since you mention McCain, he still believes this is a great nation. So do I. And I disagree with a lot of things that have happened, are happening, and are yet to come.

regards

[ravingdave]

I had a conversation with a hippy at a party one night. I basically blamed all of our modern problems on the 60's, free love, and drug use. It is actually pretty easy to blame just about everything on hippies. High crime rates, terrible adictions to heroin/crack/etc., gang violence, poverty, and aids. You can even make the case that the sex and drug culture that emerged out of the 'freedom' of the 60's has actually perpetuated racial inequality and hindered the civil rights movement from making even greater strides.

We used to be a society with an abundance of hard working poor people of all races. Today, a good and growing percentage of our poor people are not hard working any more. Mainly, IMHO, because of our drug culture and the fact that lots of inner city people are using, selling, battling over, or hiding from the drug trade.

Today I believe that it is probably best to give up, legalize drugs and spend the money that currently goes into the black hole of policing and imprisoning on educating and treating instead. But, I guarantee you that I will change my mind on this one a few more times before I die. Addiction sucks.

I would like to agree with you and i do to some extent. When I was younger that is exactly what I believed, but I started to consider what CAUSED the hippies ? Well, in a word, prosperity. Their parents grew up in rough conditions and wanted better for their children. After World War II, men came home from the horrors of war and wanted to get married and have children. The US was very prosperous after the war, (probably having something to do with the fact that our production services were still functioning unlike most of the rest of the world) and many families bought houses and lived the halycon days of the 50s.

They grew up with a rather indulgent lifestyle compared to their parents, and manyr parents unknowingly raised a generation of self centered ingrates. Corporal punishment was pass'e, and many hard lessons weren't learned. These kids grew up and went to college which was (as it is nowadays) suffused with communist sympathizers pretending to be teachers and received their indoctrination in left wing thinking.

As the communists were the "good guys" to these people, they were against the vietnam war for a couple of reasons. One, we were fighting their ideological allies who are just trying to make the lives of the poor better, and two, they would have to risk their own extremely valuable skin and suffer hardship and possibly death.

They turned toward everything anti-american as it suited their spoiled rotten rebelious nature. Drugs, Sex without committment, anti-war, anti-capitalistic, anti-religious, etc. In a word, Hedonism.


Througout human history, Austerity brings conservatism, Conservatism brings prosperity, prosperity brings hedonism, hedonism brings calamity, calamity brings austerity, then the whole process starts over again.

Because humans do not have multi generation memories, the young do not learn the lessons of their ancestors unless the ancestors make some effort to impart this beneficial knowledge to their descendants.

Much of humanity has relied on religion to pass down important rules to protect their children, and this is why it is so dangerous to various simple minded ideologies (communism) that pop up from time to time in human history.

In any case, that's my assessment of it. If It seems a little rambling, it's because people WON'T stop talking to me as i'm trying to type it !


David

[Mike Holmes]

That was an analogy. I wasn't referencing Abu Graihb - I hope we can all agree that what happened there was worthy of condemnation. No, I was making an analogy in saying that torture is, to me, a very near moral equivalent to rape. That saying that a little torture isn't worthy of a condemnation is like saying that a little rape is not worth of a condemnation of a nation.

I think, too, that where we disagree is on the level of the problem of "bashing." That is, you seem to believe that Alex has gone too far in his statement that it must mean something like, "All the World's allies must turn into enemies of the US." OK, that's an exaggeration. But "benefit of a doubt" doesn't sound all that serious to me. To paraphrase what it sounds like to me, it's like:

You have done some things that aren't quite what we'd want, so expect that we'll be watching you to try to keep you on an even keel.

Or, again, if they didn't think we could be saved, they wouldn't comment. Nobody comments about China's torture problems like this, because China has never been a nation that one could trust not to torture people. The US was at one point that nation. Or at the very least we had that reputation. We've now thrown that away largely.

Now we're just the nation that tortures only when it must and uses the least horrible methods we can think of.

"I knocked her out first before raping her, and I don't think she's too bruised up... and it was just the once."

And you expect that people will respond like, "Oh, well in that case, go on ahead." Would you trust the guy who said that with your daughter? Rather, would you give him the benefit of a doubt?

Mike

[ravingdave]

The debate should be whether or not the evidence in the OJ Simpson case was overlooked by the jury. Did they have reason to have a reasonable doubt? If not, what's your argument specifically? Which bit of evidence was incontrovertibly true?

If it looks like evidence tampering is going on then you can't trust any of the forensic evidence the police handled..

How about you can't trust any of the evidence that was possibly tampered with ? Why should the rest of the evidence suddenly go bad ?

Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity.

That put a very big hole in the case. Enough to leave room for reasonable doubt. ..

It puts reasonable doubt as to whether the police were cheating or not, it doesn't call into doubt the vast majority of evidence which indicated he did it.
Let us not let our zeal to punish bad cops interfer with the needs of our society to see justice done.

Especially if you start thinking along the lines of: "if the police had such a solid case why did they have to tamper with the evidence?"
..

Exactly my point. It doesn't prove there was no tampering, it just makes it very unlikely.

I watched the whole case on TV - that was the conclusion I came to. And a juror interviewed after the verdict alluded to that.

I watched the case everyday on ABC News, so I didn't get the all OJ All the time channels, but the only thing I saw that I considered believeable proof of evidence tampering was the fact that OJ Simpson's blood purpotedly removed from the gate, contained a preservative, which indicated that it was taken from the sample of blood that OJ submitted, and not blood he left at the scene. That struck me as very suspicious.

However, we have since learned that the preservative (DHC I believe it is called ) is common in all sorts of commonly used chemicals including paint. Like the paint which was covering the back gate.

So if you scrape a sample of blood off of a gate, is it not possible to get a quantity of the paint in the sample ? Yes.

There goes the only actual proof of "evidence tampering".

As for the juror, what would you have him say ? The defense alleged evidence tampering, if you want to let OJ go, how else are you going to do it ?





David

[seedload]

Now we're just the nation that tortures only when it must and uses the least horrible methods we can think of.

"I knocked her out first before raping her, and I don't think she's too bruised up... and it was just the once."

And you expect that people will respond like, "Oh, well in that case, go on ahead." Would you trust the guy who said that with your daughter? Rather, would you give him the benefit of a doubt?

Mike

Wow. I need to say that the continued inventiveness of your analogy is just a little disconcerting.

But, if I must engage, I will say that if torture is like rape, then waterboarding is grabbing an ass at a fraternity party. Wrong and ugly and pretty darn reprehensible, but not f'ing rape. I disagree with your argument that there are not degrees. There are.

I guess we will have to disagree, whether you agree to or not.

FYI, I am against waterboarding just as I am against grabbin' ass.

regards