But there's nothing courageous in standing firm with virtually the whole cultural leadership of this nation and the Western world, under any circumstances. It's too easy. To take a principled stand that you know will make people loathe and vilify you — that's what integrity, leadership and moral courage are all about.
It should be noted that David Gelernter is the president of NAMBLA.
By the phrase "cultural leadership of this nation and the Western world," doesn't he just mean "people to my left?" Isn't this just an argument that whomever disagrees with liberals is a hero?
Dude, you left out the best part of Gelernter's piece:
Those who defend McCain's amendment and attack Cheney and Bush feel a nice warm glow, as if they're basking in virtue, as in a hot tub, sipping Cabernet.
Where does that come from? "People who oppose torture are...are...[sputter and spit]...CALIFORNIAN!!"
>In 1982, the philosopher Michael Levin published an article challenging the popular view that the U.S. must never engage in torture. "Someday soon," he concluded, "a terrorist will threaten tens of thousands of lives, and torture will be the only way to save them."
>Suppose a nuclear bomb is primed to detonate somewhere in Manhattan, Levin wrote, and we've captured a terrorist who knows where the bomb is. But he won't talk. By forbidding torture, you inflict death on many thousands of innocents and endless suffering on the families of those who died at a terrorist's whim — and who might have lived had government done its ugly duty.
Thanks for thinking outside the box philosopher Michael Levin.
Occam's razor leads us to only one conclusion, which has eluded us for so long -- Powerline is a collection of cunning liberals following Republican ideas through to their ugliest logical conclusions, and daring Republicans themselves to defend them. All that's left is for them to advocate granting corporations the right to vote. That might be a bit too obvious, though.
How about instead of districts selecting congress-people to represent them, industries choose each a certain number of represenatives based on their total assets?
Joe's Levin quotes reminded me of the stupidest question ever asked.
"When you torture somebody to death … everybody would acknowledge that's torture. But placing a sterilized needle under somebody's fingernails for fifteen minutes, causing excruciating pain but no permanent physical damage—is that torture?" —Alan Dershowitz
By that logic, having someone agree with your position means that taking that position doesn't make you courageous. Talk about being contrarian. Along those lines, I agree with apostropher's rape and burn platform. Therefore he is no longer a hero since he has a posse.
Levin, you may recall, is the philosophy professor at the CUNY Graduate School who argued that blacks are less intelligent and less law-abiding than other races, and who sympathized with advocates of separate subway cars for violence-inclined black men.
Is it too late for Time to revoke their blog of the year award? I suppose if Hitler was man of the year once and the didn't revoke that, maybe I'm asking too much.
Oh and I am on board with Giblets '08 "A Real American Hero."
B, I think we're going to have to declare Godwin's law repealed for the duration of the Bush Administration. There's too much shit floating around that the shoe really, truly fits. (Do shoes fit shit? Time for another cup of coffee.)
SP, your counterexample in 28 only works if you are a member of the cultural leadership of the nation. So, unless you are Jimmy Carter, Ward Churchhill, or Mumia abu-Jamal, then no dice, cracker.
Bitch Ph.D can mention Godwin, but as far as I'm concerned, this is one case where breaking Godwin's Law is a duty, not a shame. This isn't just a logic under which Hitler is a hero, it's THE logic that made European facism seductive. The bad part of villifying Nazism and facism is that we lose sight of why many interesting, imaginative European thinkers found facism pretty damn attractive circa 1932: because just as Gelertner imagines, it seemed to break all boundaries, to be free of social opproprium, to make it possible to imagine a new human condition beyond the tediousness of moral inhibition. Etcetera. And no one should just say, "Oh, Gelertner, you idiot, you hack, you low-life" as a way to dismiss this very sad, very bad moment. The thing of it is, he's a very interesting, imaginative thinker AND that's why this is so bad, so alarming, so depressing. Torture is principled! It's escaping the bounds of ordinary morality. Triumph of the will redux!
This might be apocryphal, but didn't the Nazis congratulate themselves on having the steely resolve to do those horrible things to Jews? And blame the Jews for being so awful as to make such actions necessary?
Well, they should have, because it would have made for an interesting blog comment.
Tim B is, as usual, correct. (Well, except for that time he said he wanted to marry the young Clint Eastwood, or whatever that was.) A friend keeps mentioning that the people in power are truly radical. They think nothing of upending all sorts of norms and institutions, and a great part of their appeal is in the idealism that motivates them: we can get to some wonderful state of affairs (breaking al Qaeda, brining democracy to the mid-east) if only we have the will and fortitude to make big plans and do what's required. That resonates with a lot of people, and maps onto the Republicans=tough, Democrats=pansies division in US politics.
Seriously, though, as long as the distinction between American citizen and foreign national is maintained, I have troubles with many analogies with fascism. It's not that I don't think there are similarities on an individual level - the appeal of moving outside the boundaries of moral inhibition, etc. - but institutionally things don't match up quite the same way. Even if the executive can act like a dictator abroad, there are still constraints on what it can do at home.
At the same time, as long as we remain a democracy, and vote to keep in power those who think the president can order indefinite detentions and torture without due process, we (meaning citizens who could vote for others) stand in relation to those policies in a different way than those who did not resist authoritarian regimes out of fear of being arrested, citizen or not, stood in relation to their own governments.
Well I think that "The executive can do anything it want abroad, regardless of the rule of law" has potential for blowback back home anyway. Of course I'm not saying that we're at fascism yet, but if this train of thought isn't checked we will be on the way.
Which may mean that, asshole though Alito is, we're fortunate that Harriet "Bush Roolz!" Miers didn't get on the Court.
There's this, though: the American public is starting to really hate George Bush, and we're not (at this time) in a period of real domestic crisis.
I think lots of these guys in power would be very willing Fascists, but the opportunity isn't there right now, at least not for them to use those tactics on a grand scale. It may be there tomorrow, but not now. (I'm looking at you, peak oil.)
Anyway, loose uses of fascism as a term bug me, and loose analogies too. But I think Gelertner's sentiments here really do invoke one very important aspect of the specific intellectual history of fascism, the one that ensnared many imaginative, compelling European intellectuals, that sense that what the world needed was political leaders with sufficient strength to do the awful things that had to be done in order to regenerate the world. This is not to say this was an impulse exclusive to them: many pre-1939 Communists in the West sometimes imagined the same thing. This impulse is not all of fascism, in fact, maybe it's not even an important cause of fascism's rise to power, it's just what a few bright wankers thought about it. Nevertheless, I find it a depressing thing to read, especially because I've liked some of Gelertner's work.
Unbeknownst to one another, Kay and Miguel sneak away from the house to the mineshaft. The kids meet up at the mineshaft opening and enter the scary place.
The non-rendering pictures (on my browser) are a nice touch.
...ca'nt do address, and "stuff" cause, I was only a "seal", and qualified sniper. instead of "spendin" 3, 4, thousand "rounds", to kill a person, we only cost the taxpayers, a few cents!, about one kill for every two shots! wouldn't even shoot a squirrel, now, to harm another person, is indeed, a most terrible thing.
But there's nothing courageous in standing firm with virtually the whole cultural leadership of this nation and the Western world, under any circumstances. It's too easy. To take a principled stand that you know will make people loathe and vilify you — that's what integrity, leadership and moral courage are all about.
It should be noted that David Gelernter is the president of NAMBLA.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 2:49 PM
Shouldn't the foreign terrorists seeking to commit mass murder against our fellow citizens have some fear of detention?
That's it! Prison will deter suicide bombers!
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 2:52 PM
Hm, under that logic Hitler was a hero.
I apologize for invoking Godwin with only the second comment.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 2:52 PM
I am taking a firm, principled stand that all first-born daughters should be raped and burned alive on live television.
This time apostropher is the hero.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 2:52 PM
Ok, third.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 2:53 PM
Isn't Scooter Libby the real hero, for advocating the rape of little girls by bears being poked with sticks?
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 2:54 PM
NO! Fuck Scooter Libby! Apostropher is the hero.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 2:55 PM
The problem with America is these unpatriotic little girls, who will only do the right thing and submit to bears after being imprisoned.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 2:57 PM
6- Contradicting Ogged. A sin.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:00 PM
By the phrase "cultural leadership of this nation and the Western world," doesn't he just mean "people to my left?" Isn't this just an argument that whomever disagrees with liberals is a hero?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:01 PM
Dude, you left out the best part of Gelernter's piece:
Where does that come from? "People who oppose torture are...are...[sputter and spit]...CALIFORNIAN!!"
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:01 PM
And we all know "Californian" is a code word for "gay"
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:03 PM
whomever disagrees with liberals is a hero
NO! Fuck whomever disagrees with liberals! Apostropher is the hero.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:03 PM
What Labs is trying to say is: Paul Deignan is a hero!
Posted by Sam K | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:08 PM
And, Ogged, a little touchy about your hot tub? You can bask all you want.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:09 PM
Apostropher, Giblets is the hero. Suck it up.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:10 PM
[By the way, I keep getting timeout errors.]
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:10 PM
I hate them all.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:11 PM
This is completely fucked up.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:13 PM
>In 1982, the philosopher Michael Levin published an article challenging the popular view that the U.S. must never engage in torture. "Someday soon," he concluded, "a terrorist will threaten tens of thousands of lives, and torture will be the only way to save them."
>Suppose a nuclear bomb is primed to detonate somewhere in Manhattan, Levin wrote, and we've captured a terrorist who knows where the bomb is. But he won't talk. By forbidding torture, you inflict death on many thousands of innocents and endless suffering on the families of those who died at a terrorist's whim — and who might have lived had government done its ugly duty.
Thanks for thinking outside the box philosopher Michael Levin.
Posted by Joe O | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:16 PM
[By the way, I keep getting timeout errors.]
Me too.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:19 PM
Occam's razor leads us to only one conclusion, which has eluded us for so long -- Powerline is a collection of cunning liberals following Republican ideas through to their ugliest logical conclusions, and daring Republicans themselves to defend them. All that's left is for them to advocate granting corporations the right to vote. That might be a bit too obvious, though.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:21 PM
One share, one vote. Sounds fair to me.
Posted by Adam Kotsko | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:23 PM
someone will make that argument in earnest (o-earnest, even perhaps) within the next five years.
Posted by text | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:23 PM
Corporations are persons, and many are over 18.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:24 PM
How about instead of districts selecting congress-people to represent them, industries choose each a certain number of represenatives based on their total assets?
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:25 PM
Joe's Levin quotes reminded me of the stupidest question ever asked.
"When you torture somebody to death … everybody would acknowledge that's torture. But placing a sterilized needle under somebody's fingernails for fifteen minutes, causing excruciating pain but no permanent physical damage—is that torture?" —Alan Dershowitz
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:27 PM
By that logic, having someone agree with your position means that taking that position doesn't make you courageous. Talk about being contrarian. Along those lines, I agree with apostropher's rape and burn platform. Therefore he is no longer a hero since he has a posse.
Posted by SP | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:36 PM
Therefore he is no longer a hero since he has a posse.
Unless you incorporate your posse, before collectively doing said raping and burning. Then, heroes. you shall remain.
Posted by Matt F | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:38 PM
as in a hot tub, sipping Cabernet
Fool, doesn't he know we limo liberals drink chilled white in our hot tubs. A chalky chablis, maybe, or a grassy sauvignon blanc.
Posted by cw | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:38 PM
20: Levin loves to think outside the box:
Posted by Ttam R. | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 3:59 PM
31, wow. What a fuck.
Posted by Armsmasher | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 4:06 PM
Is it too late for Time to revoke their blog of the year award? I suppose if Hitler was man of the year once and the didn't revoke that, maybe I'm asking too much.
Oh and I am on board with Giblets '08 "A Real American Hero."
Posted by Ugh | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 4:08 PM
Giblets is a hero. Apostropher is the hero. Don't make me pull this car over, people.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 4:24 PM
B, I think we're going to have to declare Godwin's law repealed for the duration of the Bush Administration. There's too much shit floating around that the shoe really, truly fits. (Do shoes fit shit? Time for another cup of coffee.)
Posted by DaveL | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 4:33 PM
Sorry, make that Apostropher/Giblets '08 "The & A Real American Hero."
Campaign Slogan: Superman's got nuthin' on us. Now BOW!
The re-election campaign can use "Kneel before Zod!"
Posted by Ugh | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 4:43 PM
SP, your counterexample in 28 only works if you are a member of the cultural leadership of the nation. So, unless you are Jimmy Carter, Ward Churchhill, or Mumia abu-Jamal, then no dice, cracker.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 4:50 PM
Bitch Ph.D can mention Godwin, but as far as I'm concerned, this is one case where breaking Godwin's Law is a duty, not a shame. This isn't just a logic under which Hitler is a hero, it's THE logic that made European facism seductive. The bad part of villifying Nazism and facism is that we lose sight of why many interesting, imaginative European thinkers found facism pretty damn attractive circa 1932: because just as Gelertner imagines, it seemed to break all boundaries, to be free of social opproprium, to make it possible to imagine a new human condition beyond the tediousness of moral inhibition. Etcetera. And no one should just say, "Oh, Gelertner, you idiot, you hack, you low-life" as a way to dismiss this very sad, very bad moment. The thing of it is, he's a very interesting, imaginative thinker AND that's why this is so bad, so alarming, so depressing. Torture is principled! It's escaping the bounds of ordinary morality. Triumph of the will redux!
Posted by Timothy Burke | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 6:03 PM
This might be apocryphal, but didn't the Nazis congratulate themselves on having the steely resolve to do those horrible things to Jews? And blame the Jews for being so awful as to make such actions necessary?
Well, they should have, because it would have made for an interesting blog comment.
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 6:17 PM
separate subway cars for violence-inclined black men.
What, with signs saying, "if you are inclined towards violence, kindly ride in this car"?
Re. #11, well, it's not called the left coast for nothing, now, is it?
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 6:45 PM
40: yes. There were speeches, particularly, to the SS, saluting them for bearing the acknowledged burden of doing these terrible things.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 6:49 PM
Also, there were commas, where none were needed, or wanted, or could do any good.
Posted by slolernr | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 6:50 PM
Weapons of mass punctuation.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 6:52 PM
Tim B is, as usual, correct. (Well, except for that time he said he wanted to marry the young Clint Eastwood, or whatever that was.) A friend keeps mentioning that the people in power are truly radical. They think nothing of upending all sorts of norms and institutions, and a great part of their appeal is in the idealism that motivates them: we can get to some wonderful state of affairs (breaking al Qaeda, brining democracy to the mid-east) if only we have the will and fortitude to make big plans and do what's required. That resonates with a lot of people, and maps onto the Republicans=tough, Democrats=pansies division in US politics.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 7:17 PM
Seriously, though, as long as the distinction between American citizen and foreign national is maintained, I have troubles with many analogies with fascism. It's not that I don't think there are similarities on an individual level - the appeal of moving outside the boundaries of moral inhibition, etc. - but institutionally things don't match up quite the same way. Even if the executive can act like a dictator abroad, there are still constraints on what it can do at home.
At the same time, as long as we remain a democracy, and vote to keep in power those who think the president can order indefinite detentions and torture without due process, we (meaning citizens who could vote for others) stand in relation to those policies in a different way than those who did not resist authoritarian regimes out of fear of being arrested, citizen or not, stood in relation to their own governments.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 7:19 PM
Come on, ogged. Are you saying you wouldn't marry the young Clint Eastwood?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 7:23 PM
Well, no, but neither would I make my desire some sort of moral imperative.
Posted by ogged | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 7:26 PM
It just struck me that if Tim changed his name to "Timothy Bourke", the world would be just a little bit better.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 7:29 PM
Just as long as he stays away from Bork.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 7:33 PM
as long as the distinction between American citizen and foreign national is maintained
Jose Padilla.
BTW Armsmasher's 32 was perhaps made in response to a part of 31 that has since been deleted at my request.
Posted by Ttam R. | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 7:49 PM
Point taken, that's why so much depends on what kind of precedent Padilla's case ends up setting.
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 8:00 PM
Well I think that "The executive can do anything it want abroad, regardless of the rule of law" has potential for blowback back home anyway. Of course I'm not saying that we're at fascism yet, but if this train of thought isn't checked we will be on the way.
Which may mean that, asshole though Alito is, we're fortunate that Harriet "Bush Roolz!" Miers didn't get on the Court.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 8:09 PM
There's this, though: the American public is starting to really hate George Bush, and we're not (at this time) in a period of real domestic crisis.
I think lots of these guys in power would be very willing Fascists, but the opportunity isn't there right now, at least not for them to use those tactics on a grand scale. It may be there tomorrow, but not now. (I'm looking at you, peak oil.)
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 11-11-05 11:55 PM
The Bourke Supremacy?
Anyway, loose uses of fascism as a term bug me, and loose analogies too. But I think Gelertner's sentiments here really do invoke one very important aspect of the specific intellectual history of fascism, the one that ensnared many imaginative, compelling European intellectuals, that sense that what the world needed was political leaders with sufficient strength to do the awful things that had to be done in order to regenerate the world. This is not to say this was an impulse exclusive to them: many pre-1939 Communists in the West sometimes imagined the same thing. This impulse is not all of fascism, in fact, maybe it's not even an important cause of fascism's rise to power, it's just what a few bright wankers thought about it. Nevertheless, I find it a depressing thing to read, especially because I've liked some of Gelertner's work.
Posted by Timothy Burke | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 5:41 AM
I hate to break it to you Apostropher, but we don't need another hero.
Posted by Jeremy Osner | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 10:32 PM
Well, shoot. Let me know if there's an opening.
At the Mineshaft.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 11:34 PM
The mineshaft opening is located at 12841 Sanders Street in Detroit.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 11:50 PM
Have we linked this already?
The non-rendering pictures (on my browser) are a nice touch.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 11-12-05 11:55 PM
...ca'nt do address, and "stuff" cause, I was only a "seal", and qualified sniper. instead of "spendin" 3, 4, thousand "rounds", to kill a person, we only cost the taxpayers, a few cents!, about one kill for every two shots! wouldn't even shoot a squirrel, now, to harm another person, is indeed, a most terrible thing.
Posted by spook93 | Link to this comment | 03- 5-06 10:51 AM