Politics, Everyday, All day... morning, noon and night....

[Patience]

I also do not believe that any rule has intrinsic value, it only has subjective value which will vary according to the perceiver.

We're moving from politics to philosophy here, but let me just say: Yes. Exactly.

The notion of intrinsic value is an attempt to attribute objective reality to purely subjective concepts, like "good" and "evil." It's lazy and ill-founded.

[Simply Joel]

I also do not believe that any rule has intrinsic value, it only has subjective value which will vary according to the perceiver.

We're moving from politics to philosophy here, but let me just say: Yes. Exactly.

The notion of intrinsic value is an attempt to attribute objective reality to purely subjective concepts, like "good" and "evil." It's lazy and ill-founded.

I believe my point was.... rules are the result of the intrinsic value of something...

Please proceed with a thought process.

[stuart]

this is gonna hurt

I think what DF is saying is... uh

the PNAC dudes are running the show
people are going to figure it out
when they do, they will be pissed
when enough go through said transformation it's gonna get ugly

now, assuming that is the basic schtick, let me address it, w/o the stylisitc discussions, as I see understand it

PNAC runs the show.
well, while they have an assload of power, I don't think they 'run the show'. However, they currently are getting a lot of what they want. Things have been set in motion that will probably maintain that state. Some would argue that dem or repub in the white house does not matter, others blame entirely on the bush dynasty. As with many things, the truth is likely somewhere in betwen.

people are going to figure it out
perhaps. DM argues that folks historically have no issue with being sheep to their detriment. Can't argue with that. The only difference I see, and pehaps this is rather ethnocentric, is that people recently have access to a hell of a lot more info than they used to. And the info can be global. Thus, we have access to info that is not Amerocentric propoganda. Access, however, does not translate into action. Ultimately though, I would hate to be caught trying to predict the future one way or the other.

when they do, they will be pissed
Most of them, yeah. I can rock with this idea. Oddly though, I bet some people will think it groovy. Those some people have a lot of power.

when enough go through said transformation it's gonna get ugly
is it not already ugly?
aside from the obvious niggling little problems...
europe and the U.S. are not getting along very well at the moment. A while back it weren't an issue with a divided Europe. But the EU has economic parity with the U.S.. Some Folks in the U.S. don't like that at all. Could get ugly
China, sure could get ugly. PNAC folks have been trying to build an economic and military ring around China for awhile now. China is strong. China is getting stronger.
Nations on the U.S. shit list realize from the Iraq affair that you have three choices: Get rolled over, comply, or the wildcard we've all been waiting for: develop a deterrent. Witness N. Korea. Iran knows this and they want nukes as a result. Not so that they can have 'mushroom clouds over manhattan' but so that they can say 'Hey, go fuck yourself', when the U.S. gets uppity with them. Wouldn't that be ugly?

in the end, is it not more of the same? Or have the stakes changed? This is a question I struggle with.

[Patience]

I believe my point was.... rules are the result of the intrinsic value of something...

Please proceed with a thought process.

Yes, I got your point the first time. I respectfully disagree with it.

Intrinsic value, as far as I'm concerned, is oxymoronic. Value requires an external agent who imposes value: good, bad, beautiful, ugly, large, small, etc. These values are never intrinsic, even in the seemingly fundamental cases that Plato might have considered intrinsic. In your link, to illustrate "intrinsic" value, they basically say that if you keep asking why something is good, eventually you get down to responses like "It just is." E.g., "People should be happy." Why? Well, just because they should. That's an intrinsic value.

I think that's bullshit and lazy. It's not intrinsic and not universal. I don't think people should be happy all the time, for example. And maybe my idea of happy is not the same as yours. And maybe some other species thinks people should be enslaved. It is an external agent that makes these determinations, not the essence of the thing itself.

Thanks for the "thought process" comment. Please change your name back to Ornery.

[Don Muerto]

What Patience said.

and

DM argues that folks historically have no issue with being sheep to their detriment

Thats not exactly what I meant. I think that there will always be a ruling class, and that is not necessarily a bad thing. My point was that I don't see the convention going away any time soon. The players and the flavors may change some, but the structures will remain largely the same.

[Guest]

Three Texas surgeons were playing golf together and discussing surgeries they had performed. One of them said, "I'm the surgeon in Texas. A concert pianist lost 7 fingers in an accident, I re-attached them, and 8 months later he performed a private concert for the Queen of England."

One of the others said. "That's nothing. A young man lost both arms and legs in an accident, I re-attached them, and 2 years later he won a gold medal in track & field events in the Olympics."

The third surgeon said, "You guys are amateurs. Several years ago, a cowboy who was high on cocaine and alcohol, rode a horse head-on into a train traveling 80 miles an hour. All I had left to work with was the horse's ass and a cowboy hat. Now he's president of the United States."

[juanicoheal]

No, the world doen't have a beef with America.

Sorry DVD, that just isn't true. I think Oprah's comment was something like, 'Did you know they don't like us?'

europe and the U.S. are not getting along very well at the moment. A while back it weren't an issue with a divided Europe. But the EU has economic parity with the U.S.. Some Folks in the U.S. don't like that at all. Could get ugly
China, sure could get ugly. PNAC folks have been trying to build an economic and military ring around China for awhile now. China is strong. China is getting stronger.
Nations on the U.S. shit list realize from the Iraq affair that you have three choices: Get rolled over, comply, or the wildcard we've all been waiting for: develop a deterrent. Witness N. Korea. Iran knows this and they want nukes as a result. Not so that they can have 'mushroom clouds over manhattan' but so that they can say 'Hey, go fuck yourself', when the U.S. gets uppity with them. Wouldn't that be ugly?

aaaahhhh

Remember the good 'ol days of the cold war, when the world was divided into us, them, and the ignored masses?

Seemed easier when you knew who your enemies were.

[Don Muerto]

One has only to tune into any broadcast media to find out who the enemy du jour is.

After the USSR is was narco-traffickers, but people weren't quite so stupid to believe the majority of their taxes are necessary to maintain a huge and highly mechanized military to fight guys running coca products into the Keys.

After that, we had Saddam Hussein, but his army disintegrated rather rapidly under the onslaught and was no longer a good justification for our continuous reinvestment in high-tech arms.

So we scaled back ever so modestly on military spending and the Brass and defense contractors went absolutely bugfuck. That lead to such memorable and nebulous enemies as 'human suffering' that had us 'saving' Kosovo and Somalia.

That was not an emotionally satisfying enemy either; it had no face, and there was nobody to lynch 'at the end of the day.'

In a fortunate confluence of events, the neocons made a successful power grab and secured the American Presidency at the same time long laid plans by an new and heretofore little-known enemy were brought to fruition.

Now we have a War on Terror, and this one *does* have staying power. The enemy is global, decentralized, dispersed and has thousands of sleepers planted in every 'free' society on earth. This enemy has a face, -a focal point of hatred, that face is that of Usama bin Laden.

The fury of a nation is directed at capturing or killing this man, but what nobody wants to think about is: What comes after that? I know. The powers that be will find a new face for this same enemy. It won't be hard, to the press these enemies are all zealots, and the more sensational the conjecture the better the enemy sells.

This enemy is not a country, so the President does not need Congress to declare war per the Constitution. Nevertheless, the President will take those captured in battle and hold them in extrajudicial detention as part of the War. He will not adhere to any international agreement, and he will hold them for as long as he damn well pleases. These are not POW's. POW's have rights.

Despite this enemy not being a country, this fighting not a war, and the conflict's prisoners not POW's, the President will continue to call himself a "War President" and ask Americans to sacrifice the very liberties he purports to protect in the name of the War.

This will go on for a very long time. The world is full of extremists and our foreign policy guarantees that their ire has both merit and our name writ upon it.

I suspect that we will be fighting this Global Terror Threat until China is strong enough to take their place as our enemy.

Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia

[DVD Burner]

Sorry DVD, that just isn't true. I think Oprah's comment was something like, 'Did you know they don't like us?'

Hey, You're right. I don't like Oprah either.


Don Muerto,

I love you truely. you are a great guy.


But as Stuart says........you may be one of the people in the long run that will be pissed when you find out the way things really are.

I just hope it's not to late when you do find out the truth. And I hope I am there for you. your'e a good guy.

[Don Muerto]

you may be one of the people in the long run that will be pissed when you find out the way things really are.

I just hope it's not to late when you do find out the truth.

If you are worried about the time aspect of my edification, why not lay it on me? That's what this thread is about, not apocacryptic warnings.

[Force]

What the fuck is PNAC? Does it have any relation to PBAJ?

[Don Muerto]

PNAC is the Project for the New American Century, -kind of where the neocon agenda is defined, or at least articulated. Be sure to read their Statement of Principles as well as their policy focus links.

[Zane5100]

No, the world doen't have a beef with America.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

...cause we're The Good Guys™! We always do the right thing and never fuck up.

[Simply Joel]

April 5, 2004

The Floo Floo Bird
By WILLIAM SAFIRE

WASHINGTON — The architect Frank Lloyd Wright warned of the floo floo bird, "the peculiar and especial bird who always flew backward . . . because it didn't give a darn where it was going, but just had to see where it had been."

That's us. With our eyes fixed on our rearview mirror, we obsessively review catastrophes past when we should be looking through our windshield at dangers ahead.

Today we are engaged in the wrong debate. The brouhaha about whether the new Bush administration treated the threat of Al Qaeda as "important" versus "urgent" is history almost as ancient as whether F.D.R. did enough to avert Pearl Harbor.

The you-should-have-known inquisition, with this week's target Condoleezza Rice, is surrogate for a more contentious backward glance: Did concern about missile defense and the refusal of Saddam to permit U.N. inspections somehow keep us from preventing 9/11?

Doves opposed to the overthrow of Saddam — who had earlier argued that attacking Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan would lead to quagmire — have found a bellicose rationale for their antiwar stance. It is that these military actions against terror states undermined a more limited "war" on terrorist cells.

Thus we are rearguing the debate of the year before last: Should we have responded to the 9/11 outbreak of terror by taking military action, or should we have continued the manifestly ineffective responses to the lesser terror attacks of the 1990's?

We can argue about that throughout this year's presidential campaign and never change a mind. That debate will be resolved by events: either we will withdraw prematurely and watch Iraq plunge into civil war and again become a haven for hatred of the West, or we will help build an Islamic democracy that will turn the tide against terror conducted by rogue states using a network of freelance killers.

Today's TV blame game has doves saying, "You undermined the specific war on Osama," and hawks replying, "You never understood it's all one war." This look back generates dramatic confrontations at Congressional hearings, sells books, hypes cable ratings and wallows in justifying past positions. But it avoids engagement in the much-needed debate about how to conduct this war now and in the future.

On the military level, for example, how do we punish the killers and desecraters in Falluja? Send in the Marines with overwhelming force and shoot resisters? Cordon off the city and hope resentful citizens turn on the insurgents? Back off until an Iraqi army and police force are strong enough to pacify the populace? Politicians and pundits unprepared to take a stand now will have no standing to criticize later.

On the Iraqi political front, what about our June 30 deadline for Iraqi Sovereignty Day? One school says that this specific date for the end of our occupation encourages free Iraqis to decide soon on a transition to elections, and induces the U.N. to end its delay and NATO to step up to its out-of-theater responsibility. Another school wants to let the deadline slip until insurgents are routed and the hold-your-coat nations are more inclined to participate. Anybody with a third way?

Although few mainstream minds are now saying "cut and run," a difference of opinion exists within both U.S. political parties about the level and kind of U.S. troop strength now and in the future. What does President Bush commit to, beyond a rhetorical "stay the course"? What does Senator John Kerry, who has access to military advice from recent generals and national security aides (and should now be offered detailed C.I.A. briefings) have to say about the time of service and number of troops required?

It's much easier to look back and get worked up over discrediting Richard Clarke or second-guessing Condi Rice than it is to take a stand on issues like these that decision makers stare at today.

Let the floo floo birds look back in anger, scheduling the 9/11 commission's report on the opening day of the Democratic convention, hoping to persuade voters that Bush's concern with Saddam's threat diminished our suppression of Osama.

Other birds who dare to look ahead will wonder: Are those fixated on fixing blame avoiding the needed debate about how best to get to the root of terror in the Middle East today?

[Simply Joel]

"the ornery" is no more and will remain "Nevermore"

[Simply Joel]

April 5, 2004
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
The Fog of War
By DANIEL L. SCHACTER

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — With Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, set to testify before the 9/11 commission on Thursday, much attention is being focused on the expected discrepancies between her recollections of the Bush administration's response to terrorism issues and those of Richard Clarke. One of the two, popular thinking goes, will ultimately be caught in a lie. Already, differences have come to light between how Mr. Clarke, the former counterterrorism director for President Bush, and another White House colleague remember the specific events of 9/11.

In Mr. Clarke's book, "Against All Enemies," he recounts the responses of senior administration officials on that day. Many of Mr. Clarke's recollections conflict with those of Franklin C. Miller, a national security official who worked closely with him. For example, Mr. Clarke writes that Mr. Miller advised the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, to leave the Pentagon by helicopter; Mr. Miller said in an interview last week that he never spoke to Mr. Rumsfeld that day. The two men also have contrasting recollections of the details of important decisions, like providing fighter escorts for Air Force One when it took off from Florida. According to Mr. Miller, Mr. Clarke's memories contain dramatic embellishments that would "make a great movie" but do not reflect the reality of what happened.

These accounts may seem perplexing given the momentous nature of the unfolding events. One might even wonder whether one of the parties has engaged in willful distortion. But these conflicts need not involve bad faith on the part of either person.

Indeed, conflicting recollections are neither unfamiliar (recall the testimonies of Clarence Thomas and Anita Hill in 1991) nor surprising. The way the brain stores and retrieves information, research shows, can sometimes lead people to hold different memories of the same event.

Memory errors can be classified into seven categories (sometimes called sins). Three are especially relevant to conflicting recollections: transience, misattribution and bias. Transience is the term for the well-known fact that memories tend to fade over time (unless we rehash and discuss them frequently). Experiments show that specific details of an experience are lost more quickly than general information about it.

In one such study, 12 people were asked to summarize their activities during a "typical day" at work; they also were asked to recount exactly what they did the day before and a week before. The study confirmed what some researchers suspected: the day-old memory was a nearly verbatim record of what actually happened, but a week later memory was closer to a generic description of what usually happens. With the passage of time, memory shifts from a reproduction of the past to a reconstruction that is heavily influenced by general knowledge and beliefs.

Similar considerations almost certainly apply to what Mr. Clarke and Mr. Miller remember. Of course, 9/11 was not an ordinary day at the office. Shocking experiences like the terrorist attacks or the explosion of the space shuttle tend to be better remembered than mundane occurrences. But studies show that with the passage of time, people can forget and distort details of even these experiences.

Such errors are sometimes associated with the memory sin of misattribution, where we remember aspects of an experience correctly but attribute them to the wrong source. For instance, a college student recalled that she first learned of the Challenger explosion in 1986 from television, when the actual source was a group of friends. Misattribution errors can occur for traumatic experiences, as in the case of a rape victim who accused a psychologist of assault based on her vivid memory of his face. In reality, she had seen the psychologist on television just before she was raped.

Because parts of misattributed memories are accurate, people can maintain high confidence in such mistaken recollections. Both Mr. Clarke's and Mr. Miller's accounts are probably correct in some respects, but either one may have fallen victim to misattribution, leading to different claims about who said what to whom.

Bias, a third memory sin, occurs when current knowledge, beliefs or feelings distort the past. For example, studies have shown that we often inaccurately recall political attitudes we held in the past. Our recollection ends up reflecting our current attitudes instead. Research also reveals an egocentric bias, meaning we remember the past in ways that reflect positively our current self — a bias from which government officials are not likely to be immune.

Transience, misattribution and bias occur even when we do our best to recollect the past accurately. Without external corroboration, we cannot know for certain which aspects of Mr. Clarke's or Mr. Miller's account are off the mark — but we do know enough about memory's sins to implicate the likely culprits. It's something the commission, and the country, should keep in mind when Ms. Rice testifies as well.


Daniel L. Schacter, a professor of psychology at Harvard, is the author of "The Seven Sins of Memory: How the Mind Forgets and Remembers."

[stuart]

But as Stuart says........you may be one of the people in the long run that will be pissed when you find out the way things really are.

DF, this was not my reasoning. This was me trying to make sense of yours, paraphrasing, and then arguing points. All for the sake of the thread.


DM, I think my observations and your conclusions are not mutually exclusive.


Joel, if you insist on posting william safire articles I will have to start filling this thread with Chomsky refutations.

[Tancorix]

Joel, if you insist on posting william safire articles I will have to start filling this thread with Chomsky refutations.

Stuart, I wish you would...not that I don't like Joel's posts, but I'd like to see more counterpoints offered. I'm enjoying the thread but in this case more would be better.

[Simply Joel]

Joel, if you insist on posting william safire articles I will have to start filling this thread with Chomsky refutations.

http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/index.cfm

Stuart, I think this is where "free will" fits in.... post anything you like.

[DVD Burner]

I too enjoy Joel's posts, even though it would be nice to see some other points of view besides William Safire and Chomsky. something that rebuts my point of view.to whom most may see as a liberal or democratic. (to which I am not.)

[blyslv]

I too enjoy Joel's posts, even though it would be nice to see some other points of view besides William Safire and Chomsky. something that rebuts my point of view.to whom most may see as a liberal or democratic. (to which I am not.)

Incoherence is a "view?"

(Please continue I enjoy lurking)

[Simply Joel]

Incoherence is a "view?

http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~bsid/logic/pa ... icism.html

THE INCOHERENCE OF EMPIRICISM

A person's experiences and/or observations comprise the person's prima facie evidence. This is the first dogma of empiricism. This principle, together with two others, forms the core of W. V. O. Quine’s empiricism.

The principle of empiricism:

(i) A person's experiences and/or observations comprise the person's prima facie evidence.

The principle of holism:

(ii) A theory is justified (acceptable, more reasonable than its competitors, legitimate, warranted) for a person if and only if it is, or belongs to, the simplest comprehensive theory that explains all, or most, of the person's prima facie evidence.

The principle of naturalism:

(iii) The natural sciences (plus the logic and mathematics needed by them) constitute the simplest comprehensive theory that explains all, or most, of a person's experiences and/or observations.

[stuart]

first I'll post my own

saffire sets up an argument full of logistical holes.

he equates Iraq to Afghanistan in his thesis and bulldozers on. In the midst of that he takes a parting shot at those who predicted quagmire in afghanistan. Perhaps Mr. Saffire should take a trip to the country and decide if our 'nation building' was successful there.

Mr. Saffire is creating a smoke screen for the bloodletting going on in the 9/11 hearings by telling us not to look at our past misstakes because we need to look at the future. As a dutiful white house stenographer, Saffire is parroting one of this administrations repeated deceits; that Iraq had anything to do with 9/11. If you don't buy that original premise, only a devoted minority of fact hating sycophants take it on faith, his editorial is as barren and effective as an Iraqi WMD stockpile.

[Simply Joel]

His name is spelled WILLIAM SAFIRE.

Stuart, I think spelling his name would strengthen your assertions...

and it is much more polite too.

[III]

huh. from the strength of his logical progressions, maybe it should be WILLIAM SUFFER.

[Don Muerto]

Joel, I think the correct spelling of Safire's name has very little to do with the strength of Stuart's arguments.

De Facto, you say that you want to hear "something that rebuts my point of view," but I have yet to see you state an argument.

[DVD Burner]

why should I? You guys seem to be doing ok so far. keep going.





This is gettin good.

[DVD Burner]

Oh and does this count for something else to chew on?

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/warisaracket.html

[stuart]

Stuart, I think spelling his name would strengthen your assertions...

this is something safffire might say, but in actuality it is a stylistic attack and thus a logical falacy

[DVD Burner]

De Facto, you say that you want to hear "something that rebuts my point of view," but I have yet to see you state an argument.

so are you asking me my opinion about the state of affairs of the world at hand?