The Token Librul
Well I have been going to a local website called
The Nashville files. A nice site devoted to local news and events. I have exchanged several emails with the person running it and really see a lot of promise in it. In the section for opinion columns, there is only two right now. One is a person who styles himself
"The Token Librul". Going to his page I got a good laugh at his banner proclaiming,
"Your dislike for what I say doesn't make me wrong" Dang I like this guy already.
His latest column, Feb 02, was up asking the simple question
"Won't we have to turn Saddam loose now? On what grounds is he being held, by the way?"
I liked the question and thought I would answer one of them. The first part was simple. Bush needed a war and he made one. Afghanistan was not full of glorious photos of tanks, ships, and jets. Not enough life magazine style patriotic scenes for his poll numbers to increase. Seriously people, how often can you look at hills before getting mighty bored, fast?
So he pulled out the old show stopper of Iraq, always good for a few points. I never saw such a well-organized theatre show myself of what happened in this country. Everyday it was the same thing. WMD WMD WMD and rumors. Now as a country with our own WMD I thought that excuse was lame. I mean if we can have them for "fun and profit" then why not other countries? People who argue against Saddam from a moral viewpoint should understand that he had the same rights as we do to build a military with weapons of defense and offense.
Rumors of possible 9/11 connections also were mumbled in the halls of Washington. I for one think there were connections, but the Middle East is one of the most Machiavellian places I have ever seen. They make the CIA look like amateurs. Saudi Arabia is the crux of many problems. The official government stance is mostly pro-USA, but a good part of the royal family is Wahhabi and has supported Bin Laden and the Taliban, while the military is pro-whoever sells the best jets. They use politics better then the Germans in WW1 ever did.
So do I think we ever had a good reason to invade? No. Every step of the way he moved us closer and closer to war. At a certain point at the time I openly said that we could not "not" go to war now. We would look bad and it would destroy our foreign policy. Hell it would give every despot a "go sign" to do whatever they wanted. So we never had a good reason to go to war. The cult of personality about Bush that grew after 9/11 was as a go-getter, and he had to live up to it.
Thus war.
I did not answer his first question because he is right. Bush is a fool, but a righteous fool. He is also politically smart and I would say this is a dangerous combination. Idiot savant of the white house is the best image that comes to mind.
I was a registered republican during the Reagan years, during Clinton I was still republican in name only, I found that the republican ideal was considerably less then ideal. Could be that I was maturing with age or something. So I found myself reading more and more libertarian issue books, and agreeing with them. Well Bush did do one thing for me good, he got me off my ass and filling as an independent. The libertarian party still holds the best options for my views, but still have some issues that keep me from going all the way over to them. This last segment is to show where I am coming from in my viewpoints.
Now the second question was "On what grounds is he being held, by the way?" I'm not sure if I answered, or took the bait. This is what I wrote.
Lets say you're a cop who is raiding a person's house because the local informant said he bought drugs there and the person had more.
You have probable cause.
You find no drugs, but the explosives and kiddy porn can keep him in jail correct?
Well what we had said Saddam had WMD. A lot of other intel services said he did, and he thought he did from the orders he gave near the end. We cannot find any, but the death pits seem to be a good reason for holding him for crimes against humanity.
This sounded good to me. I try to avoid giant epic emails on the grounds that they serve no purpose. The bodies lying piled in pits should be enough to hold him. Damn good reason to me, and the families of the victims. I am not sure of one thing, is he implying that we should let him go and let the mob mentality of Iraq literally tears him apart, or is he saying we should let him go Aristede style? I am sure there are several other countries in he world that would take him in.
Well I got a reply from him. At first I noticed several things. One is the fact the guy sure likes to write. Nothing wrong with that, but damn, either call Nazi nazi fool or get off the pot.
He starts out with a good lead in. Simple question.
Searches--of homes or countries--are either legal,
or they're not.
Let's say you're a judge. A DA comes to you for a search warrant. Do you hand warrants out like candy, or do you want to know whether the "informant" is a paid snitch used to "inform" on people who don't pay off the cops? How many "anonymous tips" have been used to obtain bogus search warrants for fishing expeditions? Do you question the evicence and motives of the informant, the DA, and the cops, and protect the rights of the person to be searched since he is innocent until proven guilty, or are you a compassionate cancervative rethuglicon for whom any accusation proves guilt?
He has a point, but we did not get a warrant. We went and got a vote from our representatives. Guess what? They voted for this action. Although right now a few, hell most, are saying they were mislead and would have voted the other way if they knew certain facts. They're right. A lot of the intelligence was bad and reported bad. The raw data was there that said he was rebuilding, heck even Saddam thought he had them from the orders he gave near the end. So if he, as the dictator for life, thought he had them then how could we know that he did not? I understand the lack of a negative does not prove the positive, but that is the issue here.
Then John uses examples to illustrate a point. At first I thought he was rambling but he does get to the end in a round about sort of way.
Let's say you're sitting in your living room, minding your own business. You're making black powder-and-oatmeal hand grenades to use at an upcoming WWII reenactment. Your legal semi-automatic Browning M1919 is on the floor, waiting for you to screw the blank-firing adapter into the muzzle. You have cans of belted .30 caliber blanks for it sitting around. You also have old, surplus .30 caliber live ammo with corrosive primers that you bought cheap at Knob Creek, ammo you shoot at a friend's farm. You have several antique rifles, pistols, books about weapons and uniforms used by all sides in WWII. You have several war movies on video and DVD, including a few made in West Germany in the 1950s, for instance, The Bridge and Stalingrad, which tell stories from the wehrmacht's point of view. Hanging on the door is an original Luftwaffe dress uniform you bought at a local collector show as an investment.
A new neighbor you haven't met yet sees you bringing in the Browning "machine gun" and German uniform from your storage unit, panics and calls the cops in hysterics. They show up, arrest you, confiscate your "explosives," "corrosive ammunition," and "Nazi weapons and memorabilia."
Your uninformed neighbor accuses you of doing and having all sorts of illegal things. Reporters from all four local tv stations "report" the cache of weapons and ammo, explosives and "Nazi memorabilia."
When all is said and done, you spend money on a lawyer, don't get back the confiscated collectibles and weapons, and lose considerable face among your friends and co-workers, all because you did nothing whatsoever illegal; you just got accused of doing something illegal. You come home to find out the cops have blown up your "corrosive ammo," blanks and black powder cans, worth several hundreds of dollars.
You wouldn't sue anybody, would you?
Well he is correct for the most part I feel. Circumstantial evidence is the cause of many troubles for innocent people. The fact is that Bush played the role of the neighbor who has a desire to look good for the next neighborhood association election for block president is not overlooked as an issue. But his argument, I think, is that all of this is strange from the outside looking in, but when looked at later more closely they are just items, Items that were interpreted wrong. So a bit rambling but a point is put across.
But then he looses it. I feel he is saying that we were wrong to go to war, and I agree. But he is not debating the issues of why we still hold him, the issue I answered.
Let's say you're the president. A Saudi national has his followers attack New York and D. C. with hijacked airliners. Now, you can't go after the Saudis who supported the attack because you, your father and all your friends do lots of business with them, so you have your people make up a ton of lies blaming the country that didn't attack us and didn't have anything to do with the attack. You know you can get away with it because all the people who voted for you--and your father: (a) are fascists, (2) want to turn America into feudal Europe where a few own everything and the rest are to be glad they're serfs and not slaves, and (III) are fucking idiots who'll believe today is Wednesday if you say it, and then have Rusty Limpballs, Spawn Hannity, Anthrax Coultergeist, G. Hard-on Liddy, Rat Slobberson, FAUXNEWS and the entire vast, right-wing conspiracy repeat it over and over for the next few days. Then whenever people say something like, "Where's the proof?" you have your brownshirted minions call them all un-American and do their best to ruin their careers, all while proclaiming their own patriotism and love for the Constitution which they use daily as toilet paper.
Right here he looses it for me. I can understand the issues and have up to now understood and agreed with what he wrote. He had a good line of thought going then he falls into the emotional name-calling. I will admit a few of them are pretty clever. Rusty Limpballs is good but I have to give him two thumbs up on the Verry Feelwell one. I do kind of miss the days of super televangelists like Tilton with his constipated look every time he tried to "pull forth the spirit", heck he was better for a laugh than most comedies on TV, but I digress.
I think the issue we agree on is that Bush is a fool and, without using cute names, he is a dangerous fool. The comment on the constitution is valid. He plays with our rights and destroys them daily with the patriot act and all super databases being built.
But he falls back on the old fascist/brown shirt style of debating. I'm not sure if he knows
Godwin's law but I will help him.
The Law is generally used on Usenet as an indicator of whether a
thread has gone on too long, who's playing fair and who's just slinging
mud, and who finally gets to "win" the discussion. It has, over time,
become the closest thing to an impartial moderator that Usenet can get.
So, what this means in practical terms:
o If someone brings up Nazis in general conversation when it
wasn't necessary or germane without it necessarily being an
insult, it's probably about time for the thread to end.
o If someone brings up Nazis in general conversation when it
was vaguely related but is basically being used as an insult,
the speaker can be considered to be flaming and not debating.
o If someone brings up Nazis in any conversation that has been
going on too long for one of the parties, it can be used as
a fair excuse to end the thread and declare victory for the
other side.
So in the first email from him he falls back on an old dogmatic debate style used by liberals from the beginning of time. NAZI!!!!! Yes, before you even say it, I will admit he did not use the word nazi, but he did a dance around it that was worthy of Clintons dance around the word "is". The brown shirts were the first militant arm of the Nazi party based on a freecorp established after WW1 by unemployed veterans for the most part, normally party aligned. They were mostly killed off by the next generation of Nazi soldier the SS. The nazi party is a fascist organization and even thought he name was National socialist party they were fascists.
Then he kind of weirds me out.
Let's say you're E** F****. You're simply not up to debating with a guy who's light years smarter and better educated that you are. You get a buddy to write your political opponent and straighten him out. You forward some emails for assistance. Unfortunately, your buddy uses some phrases he could only have gotten from you, reveailing the clumsy attempt at subterfuge.
I have no idea what the hell he is talking about here. Can someone fill me in? Who the heck is E* F*****? Subterfuge? I write an email to him and all of a sudden I am part of a giant conspiracy. This is also a fallback argument of Liberals. Just think Hillary and the great right-wing conspiracy out to get her. Well I am flustered. I have no idea how to defend myself from a charge of conspiracy. Heck I feel a little honored to be included in one. I wonder will I get a secret handshake or is it a nice laminated card (good for 10% off at all bookstore in the greater Nashville area).
John. I tried to answer your question about why we still have him. If we turned him over to the Iraqi people he would be lynched, so it is our responsibility to give him a fair trial for his crimes. Bush's trial will be occurring shortly.
If you drop everything else. The people fed feet first into industrial chippers, the rape squads, the death pits, the gasses Kurds, the oil for food money that he built his palaces with, the medicine he held back from his people and blamed us, and every other crime against humanity he still is a dictator. Not the warm fuzzy loved by Hollywood dictator like Castro or Arafat, No, he is the Pol pot, Idi Amin type of dictator who likes to fill death pits. So I think we have a good reason to hold him. He's evil. Rotten to the core type of evil. John seems to be the "we filed the paperwork wrong so release Dahmer/Gacy/etc back into the public because we are really sorry" type of person. I cannot be that type ever. I cannot, and will not excuse evil.
UPDATE:
I emailed "The Token Librul" and asked him this.
Would you mind if I use your email reply in a post on my blog?
He replied
So E* did refer you to me to straighten me out. I thought so.
I'd like to visit your "blog" before opening myself to hatemail from vr-wc brownshirts who want to turn America into feudal Europe. And I do appreciate your asking first. Send link and I'll check it out.
And again I replied to him
I think you have me confused with someone else
His reply is stranger then truth
No, E* F***** forwarded to you my email hyperbolizing his being accused by his neighbors of having explosives, drugs and kiddie porn, all of which you referenced in your original email to me. I'm not stupid.
If you think there's any point to it, go ahead and use my response to your original email. But wait a minute before you post it. I've slightly revised it since I wrote it early this morning and didn't re-write it at all. I'll send the second draft for you to use.
Well I did use his slightly updated email, just some small changes and layout only.
I still have no idea who E* F***** is.