Comments on: Yes, Souters Replacement Can Be Worse

By: jfrankparnell

jfrankparnell — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 21:07:11 +0000

The author quite appropriately places the notional concepts of "human rights" and "higher values" within double quotes. Doing this consistently will have a salutary effect on both our Party and our great Nation. For if we can do this consistently, it will slowly but surely divest such terms of any remaining power. The basic progression is:

idea -> "idea" -> what's that you're saying?

More examples (some of these are already working!):

torture -> "torture" -> enhanced interrogation techniques

Bill of Rights -> "an ACLU argument" -> hey, if you don't have anything to hide then you have nothing to worry about

It may seem reckless or misguided to intentionally erode the meaning of combinations of words associated with "cherished American principles" (see how easy?), but the tragic events of 9-11 compel us to a sobering truth: that by *not* doing so we are practically inviting the Terrorists to come and kill us in our beds. And think of how immoral that is!

By: ottovbvs

ottovbvs — Sun, 03 May 2009 11:19:32 +0000

sinz54
wrote 19 minutes ago
"larryo: My only regret is that we didn't crush you Leftists in the 1960s."

......What's Frummie saying elsewhere about anger and intemperance on the right.....

By: ottovbvs

ottovbvs — Sun, 03 May 2009 11:15:48 +0000

sinz54
10:24 AM

Judging by these comments I don't think you were around at the time of the Vietnam war or the era of desegration. A time when the country was being torn apart by a totally futile war and the assassinations of both Kennedy's and MLK. Most of the Warren court's rulings remain intact including the right to privacy and yet crime has declined dramatically since the sixties and society has not fallen apart. Quite the contrary in fact I'd say in most areas of social activity society is more much more harmonious than it's ever been.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Sun, 03 May 2009 10:50:28 +0000

larryo: NO. I am not one of their "apologists."

I'm one of their cheerleaders!

I liked them, a heck of a lot more than I like you.

By: larryo

larryo — Sat, 02 May 2009 15:24:48 +0000

"A long series of anti-police rulings by the liberal Warren Court . . ."

They were not anti-police rulings, they were anti beat-a-confession-out-of-the-most-convenient-suspect and anti search-anyone-at-any-time-regardless-of-probable-cause rulings.

Second, the reason the founders said nothing in the Constitution about "privacy" was that in the 1770's the word referred to matters of the toilet. What do you think the Fourth Amendment was included to protect, sinz, if not what we now refer to as our privacy?

Third, George McGovern, Ron Dellums, and Jimmy Carter were excoriated as traitors for opposing the war in SE Asia; they were right to do so all the time, and the supporters of the war were either gulled or were liars.

Finally, what you will not see - what you refuse to see - is that our national security is not dependent spending every dime we have on weapons or on displays of martial belligerence.

That should be obvious to even the most casual observer by this time, as it should be obvious that the militarists, the imperialists, the defense contractors and all their respective toadies who gave us the war in SE Asia and then this embroilment in the middle east value only their own enrichment and their narrow, warped and murderous agendas.

And you are one of their apologists.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Sat, 02 May 2009 14:24:09 +0000

A long series of anti-police rulings by the liberal Warren Court gutted the ability of the police to deal with crime and social breakdown. Through such ludicrous logic as the Griswold v. Connecticut opinion, they extended the Fourth Amendment into some generalized "right to privacy," something that the Founding Fathers had never specified. The Warren Court went so far as to disturb even some thoughtful liberals like Theodore H. White (cf. "The Making of the President 1968"). Some of those rulings, to this very day, restrict the Government's ability to deal with the terrorist threat.

Liberals had tolerated urban riots in the 1960s. They looked the other way and even rationalized black violence in the ghettos and antiwar violence on campuses.

Liberals had argued that defacing subways and other public property with graffiti was just "artistic self-expression." This kind of "self-expression" made New York City and other major cities look like pigsties, and accelerated the flight of decent people to the suburbs.

At one point, the New York Times had actually claimed that high crime in New York City was just part of New York's "charm." I'm not joking.

As far as foreign threats are concerned, by the 1970s, the Democratic party of Harry Truman had become the Democratic Party of George McGovern, Ron Dellums, and Jimmy Carter. None of whom was fit to shine Truman's shoes. Which is why Carter lost in a landslide to Reagan.

The old Democratic Party of liberal hawks is dead. Those who didn't retire or pass away, became neo-conservatives and left the Dem Party. Jeane Kirkpatrick, Ben Wattenberg, etc.

The ONLY remaining liberal hawk is Joe Lieberman. And we saw what the DailyKOS tried to do to him.

By: ottovbvs

ottovbvs — Sat, 02 May 2009 12:59:16 +0000

sinz54
7:32 AM
"Because I've always believed that left-wing ideas are, more often than not, fundamentally flawed. It doesn't matter if they're argued with intelligence, persuasiveness, and skill. Because the logic and evidence is still on the side of us conservatives."

......Sinz unless you believe the world is a more conservative place that it was in 1909 or 1809, the logic and evidence seems to have been on the side of the liberals.

Liberalism, no matter how persuasively argued, cannot convince the American public that the breakdown of social order should be tolerated (or even encouraged) at home, or that we should look the other way at foreign threats abroad.

.....Perhaps you could tell me where Liberalism advocates the breakdown of the social order in the USA. And how FDR, Truman or Kennedy looked the other way at foreign threats. These three presidents all Democrats essentially created the whole modern defense system.

By: sinz54

sinz54 — Sat, 02 May 2009 11:32:39 +0000

Mr. Klingler: Yours is a terrible argument. You're basically arguing that you're afraid of liberals who might be at least your intellectual equal.

I'm not afraid of intelligent men who happen to be politically liberal. Because I've always believed that left-wing ideas are, more often than not, fundamentally flawed. It doesn't matter if they're argued with intelligence, persuasiveness, and skill. Because the logic and evidence is still on the side of us conservatives.

Liberalism, no matter how persuasively argued, cannot convince the American public that the breakdown of social order should be tolerated (or even encouraged) at home, or that we should look the other way at foreign threats abroad.

There were some very intelligent scholars on the very liberal Earl Warren Court in the 1950s and 1960s. But the public turned against that Court anyway, and demanded that balance be restored. Because the public had soured on what liberalism had done to the nation. And so did I.

By: ottovbvs

ottovbvs — Fri, 01 May 2009 17:43:52 +0000

“Perhaps, for example, a Harold Koh a citizen of the post-sovereign world”The dean of Yale law school. A really dangerous man. The paranoia runs rampant.