Shorter Rev. David R. Stokes
Posted on January 11th, 2009 by Tintin
ABOVE (left to right): Jack Bauer, Rev. David R. Stokes.
- Obama should replace Leon Panetta with Jack Bauer as CIA chief. And another thing, what’s the big whoop about torture? As I say to my congregation, Jesus would have tortured Pontius Pilate given half the chance.
‘Shorter’ concept created by Daniel Davies and perfected by Elton Beard. We are aware of all Internet traditions.™
Now serving in a key academic post at the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, he teaches about intelligence and national security issues.
This paragraph has rendered all satire superfluous.
Clown Hall: the gift that keeps on
givingtaking back.Stokes (my emphasis):
The jig is up, Tintin! Now tell us who your handler is.
“Torture is an ugly word. It is unpleasant and decent people abhor the very idea of it. “
It is indeed, let us not trouble our beautiful minds about such things.
“But, if it is permissible and considered as a necessary evil by a just society to kill terrorists […] why is torture, under certain circumstances, where we draw the “moral” line?”
If it is a just society what it decides must be just, why have lines at all? We are a kind and decent people, you just don’t understand how it saddens us to have to torture you. I’m sure you’ll understand.
teaches about intelligence
well, you know what they say, those that can’t do, teach…
(I mean no disrespect at all to teachers – the best teachers can do, as well.)
And to step away from the hypothetical, why shouldn’t American citizens be allowed to use torture, say, to get a better deal on a new car? Someone’s very existence, not to mention their ego, could depend on obtaining a very fashionable automobile at an affordable price.
Why shouldn’t coeds use torture to get better grades? Isn’t that a more responsible course of action than sleeping with a middle-aged, liberal professor? No risk of pregnancy or STDs or scandal – I’d call that a winning solution.
That’s the great thing about torture – it’s universal applicability.
I don’t think of any of us will be surprised when we see Jack Bauer’s face on Mt. Rushmore, in a few years.
Good god, the comments section over there is just unreal. Teh stupid, it burns!
Don’t they know that by bleating “torture works, we should use it!” they are admitting they would cave like a wet paper bag?
And since they have somehow equated their personal safety with cruel treatment of someone else, they can’t be argued out of it; it’s irrational in the first place.
And he’s a minister? And they wonder why their particular brand of religion is held in such poor esteem.
Reading that post has convinced me that he is right. Torture is indeed necessary under certain restricted circumstances. It should be mandatory to apply it to anyone who writes really shitty, brain dead, morally impoverished shit like this. That of course automatically covers everyone who posts at NRO and Clown Hall.
Even though we’re really decent, kiind-hearted, wonderful people, we simply have no choice but to inflict unbearable pain on our prisoners. It’s the other guys’ fault. The only reason that we’ve started doing these horrible (but absolutely totally and completely justifiable) things is because the maniacs we’re fighting today are so much more extreme and dangerous than our enemies of yesteryear, who were humane and moderate characters like Adolf Hitler.
Sarcasm aside, a public debate about torture is something new under the sun. Not even the Nazis or the Soviets advertised the fact that they were torturing people. The American right wing may be the world’s first political movement that is openly proud of this sort of shit.
Well, yes, torture works to get people to do or say what you want them to do or say. And I guess you’d have to be a total retard (like most ClownHall posters and commenters) to see the inherent problem there. Then again, maybe ClownHall posters and commenters don’t have daughters who may one date or encounter former torturers who have learned what works to make people do what you want them to do, or perhaps they simply would beam with pride to see one of their children with such a fine upstanding beacon of patriotism.
I’ve never been able to wrap my head around the logic of people who think it’s a good idea to train people to be ruthless punishing automotons divorced from human compassion, give them a couple of years to get really good at it, and then bring them back home to live down the block.
You know, I’ve never seen an episode of “24,” but I have to come hate it with the intensity of a million white hot suns.
Jennifer said,
January 11, 2009 at 19:39
Well, yes, torture works to get people to do or say what you want them to do or say. And I guess you’d have to be a total retard (like most ClownHall posters and commenters) to see the inherent problem there.
============================================================
Or Joe Klein, for that matter.
I happened to read this the other day.
In the end, the older I get, the more I find ideologues of all stripes to be deficient. We’ve just had eight years of the most ideological presidency of my lifetime. The free market extremism at home and pre-emptive bellicosity abroad didn’t work very well.
Shorter Joke Line: Since the people I and my fellow Villagers pandered to turned out to be a disaster, that proves that we should ignore the DFHs just like we did all along.
So… do conservatards really think torture is all that great, or did they just feel duty-bound to start saying so because a) the warrior-god-king Bush admin does it and b) liberals don’t approve?
If it was insincere knee-jerkery (like so many of their articles of faith), way to paint yourselves into a corner, dickweeds!
Since the people I and my fellow Villagers pandered to turned out to be a disaster, that proves that we should ignore the DFHs just like we did all along.
This has been going for a while now, hasn’t it? Along the lines of “Well, sure the hippies were right, but how were we to know we should listen to them after having formed unfounded opinions of them that caused us to distrust them? Plus they say ‘fuck’ and are meeeeeeeaaaan to us!”
ITTDGY – Joke Line, while greatly improved, still has problems with understanding the difference between some major concepts, such as “ideology” and “morality”. A big part of the issue one encounters when dealing with the Joke Lines is that they’re incapable of viewing things other than through an ideological lens. This results in such abhorrences as “discussions” on whether or not torture is acceptable. Once the rightwing puts it on the table as “we wanna torture, there’s nothing wrong with it, and anyone who objects to it is anti-American,” these types, slaves to duality that they are, will automatically assign “anti-torture” to be a “liberal” value, instead of correctly assigning it to “morally decent people” values, where it belongs. Having thus successfully baited the zombie media into making the association, the rightwing can then proceed to associate what is actually a value of “morally decent people” to being a value of those pervert leftists, who by definition are morally decrepit folks. And voila! Torture is a virtue.
Xeckie, in Joke Line’s case, I’d say it goes along with, “I’m the Time Magazine House Liberal, anyone to the left of my line in the sand is a crazy Marxist, and that’s what keeps my paycheck coming.”
As a dedicated proponent of the “Rule Golden”, I firmly believe that promoters of torture should be, you know, tortured. After all, what’s sauce for the goose, and all that…
I also think all disagreement with our new
GodKingPresident Obama should be branded as Treason (according to the precedent established by supporters of GWB), and the perps marginalized and/or tortured. Definitely tortured. After all, Torture is In, dontcha know.Jennifer, I think it’s also the difference between “abject failure of the Bush Administration” and “abject failure of the Bush Administration, as aided and abetted by people such as Joke Line and the rest of the sensible moderates.”
“It’s difficult to make a man understand something when his paycheck depends on his not understanding it.”
– Upton Sinclair
Both Chris Matthews and Joke are greatly improved, if by greatly improved one means sniffing the change in the political landscape and realigning rhetoric accordingly.
I believe they both still stink, and deserve to be beaten over the head routinely with their smellyness.
Thank you, Glenn Greenwald!
I also think all disagreement with our new
GodKingPresident Obama should be branded as Treason (according to the precedent established by supporters of GWB), and the perps marginalized and/or tortured.First, though, we should start simple – look for Obama-bashing on rightie blogs, then post comments like “Criticizing the President in a time of war gives aid and comfort to the enemy. That is treason, and you knoooooooowwww what the penalty for treason is.”
If I’d saved off every rightard comment of that stripe that I saw in 2003, my hard drive would have split at the seams.
What an odd lesson to take from a religion whose gospels teach that being tortured is a ticket to martyrdom.
Oh look! He’s wrapped in a flag and thumping a bible…
Again and again the right wing is stumped at how so many people miss the obvious: Something that is wrong when Bad People do it is NOT WRONG when the Good Guys do it.
It’s almost like people forget the TV shows and movies they’ve seen. How many Americans can even sing the theme song to “Walker Texas Ranger”? I rest my case.
ugh. happy sunday morning. for a different religious perspective on torture, interested readers can visit the national religious campaign against torture.
As we confront our fanatical conservative enemies we must not be afraid to say fuck or be mean to them. Jack wouldn’t.
Has Jack ever pulled a bullet out of his arm with his fingers???
Something that is wrong when Bad People do it is NOT WRONG when the Good Guys do it.
Be nice if they could comprehend the simple fact that doing it is what makes them Bad People in the first place.
Be nice if they could comprehend the simple fact that doing it is what makes them Bad People in the first place.
It’s not a comprehension problem – they believe that faith, and not “works”, is what makes you a good person or a bad one. So, if you’ve signed the slip in the back of the Chick tract and sent it to Jesus’ Holy Rolodex, you can do whatever you want.
One more time, for the morally, intellectually, and philosophically retarded:
1) The ticking time bomb scenario assumes certain knowledge that the detainee does in fact know something important.
2) The ticking time bomb scenario assumes that the detainee will give accurate answers under torture.
3) The ticking time bomb scenario assumes that something can be done to stop the bomb.
If any one of those assumptions fails, then you’ve tortured someone for no reason. Since all three assumptions are highly unreliable, the ticking time bomb scenario is stupid. Stokes backs his argument up by essentially claiming that if the CIA publicly renounces torture, it will embolden the enemy, with whom no point or place of accomodation can be found etc. etc. I could summon up a lot more outrage if Stokes had tried anything new, rather than mouthing the same damn tired justifications for how it might be okay to torture because, you know, we’re the good guys. As it stands, I just want the chance to ask him exactly what information we got from torturing bin Laden’s chauffeur, who was so manifestly un-dangerous that he’s the only Gitmo detainee that’s actually been released to the criminal justice system.
Jesus would be so proud of Rev Stokes!!!
I hate these people so much I worry for my health. My wish for the chimp, and everyone in his administration, is a veeery long life, every moment filled with anguish, remorse, horror and pain at what they did.
OpenLeft has a post up on the PCCC – Progressive Change Campaign Committee – sounds like at least some of what we need. Go give a buck or two, if you can.
On the other hand, Klein has had a very positive effect on the media discussion around Israel/Palestine by refusing to be cowed by the likudnik/neocon smear tactics that have effectively silenced any real conversation about the value of the strategic and tactical choices the current Israeli regime is making.
Goes to show there might be value and courage there, right beside the pandering. What could we possibly learn from this?
mikey
That guy’s just a quarterback.
Don’t listen to him…
mikey
Indeed. But in their minds, Obama isn’t the President, because they’ve already justified that with the birth certificate protest.
New Republican morality/comedy TV series.
A Congregation from California is accidentally overlooked during a hilarious set of mis-cues during the Rapture. (Pilot) They know they are supposed to be in Heaven they just didn’t get their bus tickets. They’ve got just 24 weeks to find their tickets and make it to Cleveland for the last bus out OR it’s the Burning Pit of HELL. The problem is their tickets have fallen into the hands of “Lib Atheists” and now our heroic (saved) “lost souls” are going have to do some punching to get those tickets back. As the series progresses we are sure to see THE ADVERSARY’S hand at work and more than a few cases of “Lib Atheists” facing Righteous Torture. Each new episode will bring our heroes that much closer to Heaven.
Laughing the entire way…
Torture, that worked on Christ, didn’t it? He renounced his claims to divinity and pledged allegiance to his Roman overlords, right? Isn’t that what’s written in the Gospel According to St. Stokes?
But in their minds, Obama isn’t the President, because they’ve already justified that with the birth certificate protest.
True. And a nice bit of symmetry – because back then, to me, Bush wasn’t the President because he’d stolen the election.
This just in: Michael Ramirez is a racist piece of shit
Karl Rove and servant Albert were justified in turning the Justice Department into an arm of the Republican Party, because they accused Clinton of doing the same thing.
That’s the very point I made earlier, but you said it more succinctly. There are so many levels of weirdness and obsession going on here. Torture is fetishized, while at the same time the victims of it are martyred and deified.
Not to make excuses for anybody, but I can kind of understand the confusion that might arise from that scenario.
“Italy can survive the loss of Aldo Moro. It would not survive the introduction of torture.” – General Carlo Alberto Dalla Chiesa
Is that really what’s going on here?
There has been an awful lot of nonsense written about Gaza from both the left and right.
Sounds like typical Joke Line to me. His commenters are far better than he is.
Well, no. What LBJ failed to understand is the Ho was wired exactly like an American. If the Soviets had invaded California would LBJ have turned it over if they had promised to help build a couple of dams on the Mississippi? We illegally occupied half his country and for some reason that made him want to drive us out. Who would have thought?
To riff on John Cole: Would it be wrong to let the detainee (why the fuck is that in quotes?) fuck the interrogator up the ass in exchange for information that would save lives?
What if the detainee insisted on being left alone with ten feet of rope, a ball-gag, a book of matches and a drugged Bible-humping hypocrite? Normally it would be morally wrong to tranq. a fat shit-head, bundle him into a plane and fly him to Gitmo where he’ll be relentlessly butt fucked by a guy he’s never met, but when lives are at stake we must make all be prepared to make sacrifices.
To riff on John Cole: Would it be wrong to let the detainee … fuck the interrogator up the ass in exchange for information that would save lives?
Hee hee – that rejoinder is exactly what the ticking clock argument deserves.
There is also the “sure, go ahead and torture the guy, then stand trial later. If the jury thinks what you did was justifiable, off you go.” No need to legalize torture just to torture somebody, is there? Or is this line of thinking offensive because it relies on trial by a jury who may be snivelling little liberal cowards who would use any excuse to send a manly-man conservative hero to jail unfairly?
Joe Budda: “…I firmly believe that promoters of torture should be, you know, tortured…”
But where would it end? Wouldn’t the torturers of the torturers have to be tortured and so on and son ad infinitum?
Wouldn’t the torturers of the torturers have to be tortured and so on and son ad infinitum?
That’s the beauty of it – you have them torture each other, and the pool never gets any larger.
Why is Jack Bauer about to shoot Ricky Gervaise in the head in… what is that? Appalachia? Heaven? Does Ricky know something? Or did he just offer to let Jack fuck him in the ass? Are lives being saved?
Robert M. said,
January 11, 2009 at 20:44
I thought this whole comment was good, but I’d tweak assumption 2: not only would the detainee give good information under torture, but torture is the best/only way to get the information, which long CIA experience indicates is false. According to a former CIA station chief in Jordan, you not only get good results by just talking, you get better results with talking than you would with torture: “Beating a guy up doesn’t work. He will tell you anything to stop the pain.” Torture rolls snake-eyes.
Would torturers of torturers be tortured and so on ad infinitum?
Would they have to cut the noses off of all their faces just to spite ’em?
Would they have to cut the noses off of all their faces just to spite ‘em?
Don’t you try to confuse me – it’s torturers all the way down.
Don’t you try to confuse me – it’s torturers all the way down.
Okay, that’s a good line right there.
Wait up everybody — (Not) Joe the (Not) Plumber has filed a fact-filled report from the (Not) Gaza Strip!!!
Joe then tipped his cowboy hat t’ward the ladyfolk present, spat out some chaw, and moseyed away to ride his horse to the next pile of unasked questions.
Given the fact that the new season of 24 starts tonight, we can be certain that there will be a rush on tissues and vaseline at most WalMarts this afternoon.
Don’t you try to confuse me – it’s torturers all the way down.
Yep. All the way down to hell.
“I have thousands of questions but I can’t think of the right one.”
Protip, Joe – the real reporters write them down. You might have done something like that on the plane ride over.
It does mean learning to write, tho.
There is also the “sure, go ahead and torture the guy, then stand trial later. If the jury thinks what you did was justifiable, off you go.” No need to legalize torture just to torture somebody, is there?
Agreed. Basically, if potentially saving the lives of many thousands of innocent civilians justifies torture, it justifies the torturer risking some time in the klink. If you don’t have the balls to risk jail, you don’t have to balls to be stomping on someone else’s balls.
“Would it be wrong to let the detainee … fuck the interrogator up the ass in exchange for information that would save lives?”
Ya know, that’s a great idea for a new reality show right there. Each week a lucky contestant gets selected to save America. It’s your patriotic duty to let Abu Musab al-Zarqawi fuck an America up the ass every week.
You could expand it too. I can imagine Gitmo converted into a torture dungeon with the terrorists in charge. Walk by row after row of cells containing loyal American getting fucked up the ass by Iraqi goat herders. It’s enough to bring a tear to your eye.. sniff…
David Stokes is unable to distinguish fiction from reality. This fully qualifies him to be a fundie church pastor. An advisor to the President? Not so much.
If you don’t have the balls to risk jail, you don’t have to balls to be stomping on someone else’s balls.
Right. It does put the torture-apologists’ protests in a new light, doesn’t it? They want impunity.
It’s always instructive to see what people are trying to make legal and illegal – like when Bush “unsigned” the ICC ratification nine months before we started bombing Iraq because, gee, if we were a party to that, people might accuse U.S. citizens of war crimes for no reason at all or for political points.
Conservatives are basically sadists. They don’t advocate torture because it “works — they advocate it because the thought of torturing a human being is deeply satisfying to them on multiple psychic levels.
Conservatives are basically sadists.
It goes hand-in-hand with being soaking-pants cowards.
Extracting the salient bits verbatim, David’s entire essay can be reduced to:
Torture is an ugly word. It is unpleasant and decent people abhor the very idea of it. Torture is certainly horrific… but since we engage in the necessary evil and kill terrorists…bomb them…send missiles their way, and…otherwise fight them with cruel might, why draw the “moral” lineat torture?
Conservatives are basically sadists. They don’t advocate torture because it “works — they advocate it because the thought of torturing a human being is deeply satisfying to them on multiple psychic levels.
Bingo. With one proviso. That they don’t have to actually do it themselves. They prefer to watch…on television.
It’s no accident that Stokes’ opens with 24 as a representation of how actual torture would play out. In his mind, the torturer is a reasonable guy who has been pushed to the limit and the torture victim is depraved and diabolical to his bitter end.
he teaches about intelligence and national security issues.
So, President Obama can just hire anyone who got an “F” in any of Stokes’ classes. And here we thought wingnuts’ deep intellectual and moral impoverishment provided only unintentional comedy as a public service.
Hell yeah.
We also drop bombs and missiles on innocent civilians, so why NOT torture them too?
,mikey
I don’t follow “24” either, but I seem to recall hearing that Jack Bauer tortures people all over the place but that L.A. got nuked anyway.
Great minds think alike. Here’s another photoshop, from last week.
http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2009/01/06/5-reasons-to-love-dr-sanjay-gupta-as-surgeon-general/
One more time, for the morally, intellectually, and philosophically retarded:
1) The ticking time bomb scenario assumes certain knowledge that the detainee does in fact know something important.
2) The ticking time bomb scenario assumes that the detainee will give accurate answers under torture.
3) The ticking time bomb scenario assumes that something can be done to stop the bomb.
Let’s just take this one step further.
4) The ticking time bomb scenario assumes that the Good Guys even know they’re in a ticking time bomb scenario.
It seems highly unlikely that warning alert of an imminent act, identification of a person with knowledge about the act, and proximity to the person with knowlege (let alone capture of him) would occur together.
How likely is it that an individual Hero would
1) know there’s a time bomb about to go off
2) identifies the bad guy who knows about it.
3) has access to the bad guy
4) has the ability to transmit the information resulting from torture to someone who can do something about it?
“Hello? This is Jack Bauer. I just waterboarded a guy who says there’s a – ”
“CIA, Langley. Your call is important to us. If you know your party’s extension, please press it now.”
“Grand Central Station. What? The lockers? No, sir, this is the information desk. We don’t know anything about the lockers on the lower concourse. Those are handled by a concessionaire. Uh…let me find that number for you….”
“911, how may I help you. Yes sir, please calm down and tell me the address you’re calling from. Is the individual in need of medical treatment? Bomb? The Main Post office?”
“Sir you know it’s felony to call in a false bomb threat. What is your address please?”
I’ve never been able to wrap my head around the logic of people who think it’s a good idea to train people to be ruthless punishing automotons divorced from human compassion, give them a couple of years to get really good at it, and then bring them back home to live down the block.
And get jobs with local police forces or in the burgeoning private security industry. And we’ll all feel gay when Johnnie comes marching home.The men will cheer and the boys will shout
The ladies, they will all turn out.
Why is it only “liberals” get to “engage” in “moral” “relativism”?
Not sure what the average age/sex of 24 fans is but I’m betting 12 year old males (and then you have all the middle aged arseholes who never grew up).
The whole ticking time bomb scenario is indeed absurd on its face, It’s just a trick to set your feet on the slippery slope that ends with allowing the Sheriff to torture black and brown people to find out who robbed the 7/11.
(and then you have all the middle aged arseholes who never grew up)
As a middle aged arsehole who never grew up, I resent this remark.
…then you have all the middle aged arseholes who never grew up…
Like one outspoken coworker of mine… sigh. The programming business is packed to the brim with social retards.
As a middle aged arsehole who never grew up, I resent this remark.
Not all middle-aged arseholes who never grew up are 24 fans, if that’s your objection. For instance, I’m not a 24 fan.
As a middle aged arsehole who never grew up, I resent this remark.
well…there’s more than one kind of not growing up. some good, some embarrassingly awful. Like a 60 year old woman in a mini skirt, for example. Though I’d sooner break bread with her than David Stokes.
Like a 60 year old woman in a mini skirt, for example
My favorite expression in the world for this is “Mutton dressed as lamb.”
These people tire me terribly.
If I suspect — or just say I suspect — Rev. David R. Stokes of planning on detonating a nuclear bomb somewhere, may I please torture him to death?
Thanks. Much obliged.
Do Republicans realize that there is no such person as Jack Bauer?
Would telling them be akin to telling a child there is no Santa Claus?
Do Republicans realize that there is no such person as Jack Bauer?
I’m beginning to understand why Republicans take Hollywood so seriously.
Soon they’ll be recommending Dexter to head the Dept. of Justice.
Why is it only “liberals” get to “engage” in “moral” “relativism”?
I heard a great reframing of this issue this past weekend on that NPR show Speaking of Faith, which I usually tune out but was about the history of doubt and skepticism this week. The term relativism is typically abused, especially by ignorant wingturds, to mean “anything goes and it’s okay to do whatever you want, such as buttsex.” What it actually means is the truth of moral judgements are relative to the culture of the judger. So “teh buttsex is ewww” is true if you are from Alabama and false if you are from Fire Island. Properly understood, conservative religionists are the moral relativists because moral judgements are entirely dependent upon one’s religion. In other words, the truth of their moral judgements are relative to what an old book says — if the book said differently, then the same judgment would have a different truth value. A secular humanist on the other hand is both more likely to have a certain moral permissiveness about many things (because we don’t hold arbitrary rules about harmless activities), but is also much more likely to have a limited set of steadfast and strongly held universalist principles, such as “torture is always wrong.”
In other words, fuck those assholes for not knowing what philosophical concepts mean.
Soon they’ll be recommending Dexter to head the Dept. of Justice.
I would so take Dexter over Gonzo. At least the former sociopath has strictly followed principles. The latter sociopath is a relativist of the DWTFWW school.
I’ve never been able to wrap my head around the logic of people who think it’s a good idea to train people to be ruthless punishing automotons divorced from human compassion, give them a couple of years to get really good at it, and then bring them back home to live down the block.
Ah. Of course. This would be WAY worse than, say, taking the kid down the street, teaching him to wield the most effective tools of mass death ever invented, stress him with several years of combat deployments in which he is entirely desensitized to killing very large numbers of unarmed people in an urban environment.
And then returning him to American Society a “hero”.
Ho hum.
You say “torturer”. I say “machine gunner”.
Either way, hell’s coming home for the holidays…
mikey
So “teh buttsex is ewww” is true if you are from Alabama
funnily enough, when Alabamans engage in secret buttsex they ewwwwww when they climax. it’s part of the fun.
I’m beginning to understand why Republicans take Hollywood so seriously.
Yup. The dumb masses of them can’t tell the difference between reality and fiction, and the cleverer ones believe that absolutely everything can be controlled with Perception Management™. That being the case, ideological control of the media = control of the world.
They keep forgetting that a skeptical audience can see through the bullshit. I keep thinking of Karen Hughes’ jaunts to drum up support for the Iraq invasion because if she just sat people down and really really explained it to them, of course they’d support it.
These people can’t be reminded enough that Jack Bauer is a fictional character, and “24” is a TV show, not reality.
Also,the meme being repeated incessantly on the right at this point is that our enemies, and also the Palestinians, wish to kill every white christian (and Israeli) on earth, and so it is just and wise to summarily exterminate them. That this turns the reality on its head is not a problem for the reverend and his ilk. Hell, this is the prevailing wisdom on the networks. I watched “This Week with George Stephanopolous” this morning and the panel was Newt Gingrich, Peggy Noonan, George Will and Thomas Friedman, discussing Israel, Gaza and Hamas. Where the hell is any balance, or for that matter, enlightened and informed commentary? All four (only slightly less so Friedman) are uninformed, biased hacks. Belay that comment about Friedman being slightly less biased than the others. He just repeated the talking point that Bush has prevented any terrorist attack since 9/11.
These people can’t be reminded enough that Jack Bauer is a fictional character, and “24? is a TV show, not reality.
I laughed when I read that because even a 4-year-old knows a cartoon isn’t real, but my laughter stopped abruptly when I read this:
for example, US Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia took offense at a Canadian judge’s remark that his nation did not consider what Jack Bauer would do when setting policy.
God, that asshole needs to be chucked off the court. He’s all fine with torture as long as it isn’t applied to convicted criminals as “punishment”. Fuck him.
The fact is, Jack Bauer is all about USA Freedom and you liberals hate that.
24 Script Generator:
Jack Bauer has to torture (pick one)
A. A Terrorist
B. A Terrorist’s family member
C. A rogue agent
to find the location of (pick one)
A. The nuclear device
B. The biological weapon
C. The Terrorist Base
while facing resistance from (pick one)
A. His superiors
B. Liberals in Congress
C. The Media
in order to save (pick one)
A. Washington DC
B. Los Angeles
C. The entire world
from total destruction.
The fact is, Jack Bauer is all about USA Freedom
So “teh buttsex is ewww” is true if you are from Alabama
If “buttsex is ewww”, then what is ewe-sex?
Okay, I swear David Foster Wallace is haunting S,N! I’ve been rereading Infinite Jest and there is a mention of the Rantoul Press in one of his crazy non-sequiturs. And then there is this character Marathe, a Quebecois double-agent, that speaks an awful lot like Gary Ruppert, especially that weird linguistic tick of putting “USA” in where “American” would be much more common and linguistically appropriate (“USA freedom”).
If “buttsex is ewww”, then what is ewe-sex?
In Alabama? Friday night at the drive-in.
Loneoak, I think David Foster Wallace has been haunting the past 8 years.
Seriously, I kept waiting for Bush to announce a program to fling waste into Canada via trebuchet. While he missed on the specifics, he did plenty of things that were equivalently belligerent and insane.
In Alabama? Friday night at the drive-in.
Heh, heh, heh…he said “drive-in”.
Jennifer, someone should definitely explore the “W is President Gentle” thesis more extensively. Remember Mario’s Interdependence Day film of a puppet show of the Gentle Cabinet’s meeting where they propose corporate sponsorship of years because of the cost of the Great Concavity? That was so prescient of W’s cabinets I am dumbfounded.
Maybe that’s why DFW offed himself: he realized that his writing was coming true and thus the future was too awful to contemplate.
That’s another advantage to the sex for information route. Because the interrogator won’t have done anything illegal, there won’t be any need to waste tax-payer dollars on a trial.
Americans are decent people. We understandably flinch and recoil at violence. We deplore senseless killing. We cannot even begin to grasp the fanatical insanity of our Islamist enemies. Rev. Stokes
Has this guy met any Americans?
Questions for not Joe the not Plumber
Why are all these rockets all broken and shit, they aren’t very scary.
There’s a lot of people whom I can’t help but notice are not Americans around here. They might be the ones causing trouble?
All this sand, no beach. That’s kind of suspicious, didn’t nobody else think of this?
Is it always this hot?
I’m getting paid in greenbacks, right?
How far is it to Tijuana?
That was so prescient of W’s cabinets I am dumbfounded.
Maybe that’s why DFW offed himself: he realized that his writing was coming true and thus the future was too awful to contemplate.
You read my thoughts. 2002 would definately have been the “Year of the Depends Adult Undergarment.”
conservative religionists are the moral relativists because moral judgements are entirely dependent upon one’s religion
The weird thing is he concedes torture is abhorrent but thinks it might sometimes still be an acceptable option, so I’m thinking he’s “relatively” full of FAIL by every possible definition.
I don’t follow “24? either, but I seem to recall hearing that Jack Bauer tortures people all over the place but that L.A. got nuked anyway.
Three times.
Just to clarify that point, that means that after seven years of torturing one person per hour in a day, Jack Bauer’s antics have blown up a major American city three times.
That’s 168 people tortured for shitty information, no doubt many more just killed, and an entire city leveled not once, not twice, but three times.
Jack Bauer’s not very good at his fucking job.
At least Bruce Willis ends up stopping the bank robbers masquerading as political terrorists.
Jack Bauer is excellent at his job: selling tissues and vaseline at WalMart.
Has this guy met any Americans?
David Stokes hasn’t even met David Stokes yet. The lack of conscious awareness really gets in the way.
and when I say “lack of” I mean “absence.” Zip, zilch, zero.
That’s another advantage to the sex for information route. Because the interrogator won’t have done anything illegal, there won’t be any need to waste tax-payer dollars on a trial.
Depends what state the, um, interrogation takes place in, I suppose.
Yet despite the real news, the “counter-jihadosphere” has erupted into a festival of eating each other alive again after Pamela Geller (for some insane reason) called for the public flogging of LGF’s Charles for–guess what–starting fights in the counter-jihadosphere!
Had to give that dispatch from my neck of the woods, I know some here will appreciate it to the fullest. The LGF thread is a regular Pamela bash fest.
(brought to you in part by myself and The Sphinx)
Sadly, Pamela isn’t winning the best conservative blog award. Let’s step up the voting shall we? SHE MUST WIN.
No!! Once you read the comments at LGF you’ll want them to actually win! It’s a big “she’s a drunken attention whore in-crowd bitch–and are those her kids?!?!” festival over there. We’re already passing the popcorn.
rival comments:
and
Lesley – that second comment you quote jumped out at me too. 🙂
But the whole thing is pretty crazed. The “You are A Idiot” cartoon is more fun to watch, IMO.
this one jumps out even more.
“little thinking”, indeed
“little thinking”, indeed
That is a pretty nice survey of a lifetime of wingnuttitude.
I’m old enough to not regret voting for Dukakis, Clinton, Clinton again, Gore, Kerry, and Obama, even if I’m not happy with how some of those elections turned out.
Depends what state the, um, interrogation takes place in, I suppose.
Not to mention which “enhanced interrogation technique” is used.
You gotta love how in one thread over here at S,N! we move from a discussion about wingnuts strutting around about how tough they are because they don’t flinch at the notion of torture to comments from rival wingnut sites about how easy it is to get cut off if you hurt their wittle feelings.
Jesus has a webcam set up in Pilate’s cell.
What always strikes me as funny is that not only do they not seem to understand that 24 is not a documentary and that Jack Bauer is not a real guy, but they don’t seem to know that the actor who portrays Bauer is a liberal.
Wingnuts: We just don’t do reality. Reality hurts us.
Candy it’s even worse than what you say. The actor who plays Jack Bauer is the grandson of a socialist Premier in Canada who is endeared to our country because he is viewed as the father of our socialized medicine. If we were using the standard wingnut Obama guilt by association logic, that means that Jack Bauer is a communist.
Hey yeah. And they won’t want to hear this.
Never let them know “Bauer’s” dad is Donald Sutherland. They’ll go ballistic!
Candy:
What bothers me is that even if you did treat 24 as a documentary and Jack Bauer as a real guy, his track record is terrible! The counter-terrorism unit is riddled with moles, the city he’s in and responsible for has faced three major fucking nuclear disasters, several assassination attempts of major world leaders, for every person he tortures and/or kills, the terrorists are *always* three steps ahead of him, and he fails pretty much every single time.
Not only do wingnuts not accept reality, they don’t even accept the fiction they’re presented with.
If you’re a torture porn producer, that’s a feature, not a bug. The whole bit is predicated on the notion that the terrorists are incredibly competent, and always several steps against the heroes. Hence the justification for Bauer shooting some handcuffed guy in the knee, or whatever.
Keifer Sutherland:
like his dad, Donald, and his granddad, Tommy Douglas
I just don’t understand wingnuts, and I don’t think I ever will. They actually do not want a world in which peace and prosperity reign. The only place they want peace and prosperity is in their own little gated communities. They want the wider world to be this dangerous, scary, escape-from-New-York type of environment and they want to watch the drama unfold from the safety of their little couches. Their very own Bauer bowers, if you will.
As long as they are out of power and hold no authority, I’m prepared to sort of pity them. But they must be kept out of power. It’s terrifying that for eight years these delusional, projecting sociopaths have actually controlled things. And just look at this mess.
CBS has a nice piece about energy speculation on right now.
Free market triumphalism, beaches!
sarcasm on* Oh sure, he’s going to say it’s not real, he’s a actor. Jack Bauer knows it’s reel.* sarcasm off
comments in that thread are priceless, btw.
the wingers are furious that Kiefer’s a liberal (and Canadian) when he plays a character they love and admire. One idiot even says “I thought Keifer looked a little Canadian.” Another says he’ll never buy the boxed set now!
How likely is it that an individual Hero would
1) know there’s a time bomb about to go off
2) identifies the bad guy who knows about it.
3) has access to the bad guy
4) has the ability to transmit the information resulting from torture to someone who can do something about it?
You forgot:
3.5) has enough information about the bomb to know whether the bad guy is lying under torture
And, of course, somehow the hero has managed to get all this detailed information but still doesn’t have enough information to stop the bomb without resorting to torture.
the clincher…
These are the same guys who believe whores don’t fake orgasms FOR THEM.
Gold!: I probably agree with Keifer on this one thing, “it’s a television show”.
Not only do wingnuts not accept reality, they don’t even accept the fiction they’re presented with.
A good point. I honestly don’t think they understand the story very well. The simple explanation may be that many wingnuts are just not terribly bright.
A priceless testimonial for PammyCakes:
“Atlas has been an invaluable resource to me as a Clinton/PUMA blogger, and although we sometimes differ on the finer points of politics and philosophy, I know I can count on Pam to have integrity.”
Wow, those NewsBusters comments are great! Endless whining about how Hollywood celebrities actually use their fame to promote their views. That this comes on a blog really just makes the commenters look jealous.
While the funniest single comments have already been posted here, I love the over-arching theme: “I’m angry that people whose opinions I claim not to respect are saying things which offend me.” There’s just no awareness of any kind, other than their own self-proclaimed victimization.
I often marvel at how wingnuts react to pop culture. It’s so delightfully deranged.
The older wingnuts in my family idolize Archie Bunker, for crissakes.
Ohhhh Archie!
From the LGF comment that lesley linked to:
Is that really how they think people are? I can remember being a seven-year-old wishing that Carter had won in November of 1980. I can remember being an 11-year old extremely frustrated with the public for voting in Reagan again.
There is nothing wrong with ignoring politics until a certain age, but “RememberSekhmet?”‘s assumption that everyone else thinks as he/she does is wrong.
I get such a kick out of someone who “probably agrees” 24 is a television show. He’s not 100% committed to the fact THAT IT IS, but he might meet you three quarters of the way.
Two points: (1) George H.W. Bush had as much intelligence experience when he was appointed CIA chief as Leon Panetta does; and (2) Kiefer Sutherland doesn’t have much of a package.
Vanity, trying to arouse a good opinion of oneself, and even to try to believe in it, seems, to the noble man, such bad taste, so self-disrespectful, so grotesquely unreasonable, that he would like to consider vanity a rarity. He will say, “I may be mistaken about my value, but nevertheless demand that I be valued as I value myself”, but this is not vanity. The man of noble character must learn that in all social strata in any way dependent, the ordinary man has only ever valued himself as his master dictates (it is the peculiar right of masters to create values). It may be looked upon as an extraordinary atavism that the ordinary man is always waiting for an opinion about himself and then instinctively submitting to it; not only to a “good” opinion, but also to a bad and unjust one (think of all the self-depreciations which the believing Christian learns from his Church). It is “the slave” in the vain man’s blood- and how much of the “slave” is still left in woman- which seeks to seduce to good opinions of itself; it is the slave, too, who immediately afterwards falls prostrate himself before these opinions, as though he had not called them forth. Vanity is an atavism.
— Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil
& yes I know he was a misogynist
Sorry I got off topic there, I don’t really like to disrupt discussions of Jack Bauer Superstar. I’m eagerly awaiting the musical.
Wow, Robert Spencer just wrote back that he defends Pamela no matter what, even after seeing my post on her comment advocating genocide of the Palestinians. Wingnuts to the right, wingnuts everywhere, happy in the snarking of Sadly, No!.
Thanks for my “dispatches from wingnuttia” comments, well for putting up with them. I will now stop my interruption of the regularly scheduled (and well deserved) mockery of Jack Bauer Superstar continue.
Does that make Robert a shrieking harper?
Edith–Shrieking Harper Superstar! HAHA!
If that other guy is Stephen Root, then I believe that Jack believes that Milton has HIS stapler.
Is that really how they think people are? I can remember being a seven-year-old wishing that Carter had won in November of 1980. I can remember being an 11-year old extremely frustrated with the public for voting in Reagan again.
I distinctly remember crying at the age of 8 because Bush 41 had campaigned on the idea of a 6 day school week and I really did not want to go to school on Saturday. My dad had to talk me down from the abyss by pointing out that he was a lying bastard who was full of shit and it would never happen. And then a few years later I organized my class to send letters to Bush against the Gulf War and dragged my dad to anti-war protests.
We oughta get Jack Bauer to torture Keifer Sutherland! [Fap fap fap fap!]
/fReichtard
Of course, these are the same lackwits who are still feeling shocked and betrayed because Schwartzenegger doesn’t spend his days snapping the necks of librul girly mens. Remember when they used to babble blithely about changing the presidential qualifications so Arnie could run for Pres?
I don’t know exactly when they shut up, but I suspect it was within a few days of Arn’s first environmental initiative.
More insightful commentary from Joe the Plumber (or whoever and whatever he is):
It’s so stupid it’s brilliant. I’m starting to think that Wurzelbacher is not a real moron, but is actually a genius impersonating a moron while he pulls off the world’s greatest practical joke.
Wait a minute. Let me get this straight. The good reverend thinks that Jesus, Son of God, the All Powerful, wanted to torture Pontius Pilate but wasn’t able to???
There are so many things wrong with just that one statement I don’t even know where to begin.
Snorg, that is priceless.
I sincerely hope Joe graduates himself from reporting to neurosurgery. I mean, the body’s just a bunch of pipes and tubes, right? Who needs a diploma?
Well, yeah. I mean, why should journalists be allowed to actually report????
You know, I liked back in World War I and World War II when you’d go to the theater and you’d see your troops on, you know, the screen and everyone would be real excited and happy for’em.
Yeah, cuz even though Joe is, what, 30?, he fondly remembers weekly jaunts to the theatre in the 1940s and how excited and happy everyone was about their loved ones dying overseas.
here we have this theme again. troops “on the screen.”
If only people realized that reality is best served via teevee and propaganda. No need to show atrocities…that’s such a frickin’ downer.
Joe did say that. He said something like” When journalists go in they say “Look at this atrocity and they don’t know the back story”
From what I could gather from his spewling.
Joe thinks we should stand back and let professionals like Jack Teh Hero Bauer save the day, that’s what he thinks.
Why don’t journalists report on the happy side of war?
Um. Well, then, Plumber International War Correspondent Joe, guess that means you’d better hop on the next plan back to Oh-high-oh, huh? Can’t be *reporting* on any wars, now, can we?
_____________________________
And a proactive FYWP for the strikeout that probably won’t work.
If “buttsex is ewww”, then what is ewe-sex?
Embrace me
You sweet embraceable ewe…
Jack Bauer, Atlas Shrugged, Lost, Spider-Man; they really are in full retreat from reality, aren’t they? Still, after reading the Joe the Welfare Queen links, it’s not hard to see why they’d be clinging to fictional heroes. It’s because all their real-life heroes kind of, well, suck.
Full retreat, most definitely. You have to admit though, that Joe the Plumber ad from PJTV is priceless. I even screen captured it just to keep it forever and ever and ever….LOL.
So they do live in a fantasy world in their own heads…
And it’s such an awful world.
And it’s such an awful world.
But they’re such a cheerful lot of folks!
Slightly off-thread. Has anyone else noticed that the woman modeling the shirts on the ad at Townhall has started looking a little skinnier and more malnourished that she used to? I rarely click through the links that are being mocked, but every now and then I do. She is looking really bad now. Not quite meth lab strung out bad, but worse that say year ago…
Joe did say that. He said something like” When journalists go in they say “Look at this atrocity and they don’t know the back story”
this from a guy whose interest in “the back story” has a life span of about two weeks.
I liked the video of Joe saying he was preparing for this reportage by learning to “pronounciate”. Saw that on The Daily Show. I loved when Jon Stewart said, “Joe Wurzelbacher a.k.a. Joe the Plumber a.k.a. GO AWAY!”. True ’nuff.
OT but I just turned on the tube to see if we were gonna get a snow day today and there was Teh Chimperor in Chief live and in color getting very testy with a reporter who’d apparently asked him if Amurrka’s standing in the world had been damaged. He was adamant that it was only “a few countries in Yurp” and the “rioters” and some others, and that most of the world thinks we’re the bestest, kindest, most humane country in teh history of the planet. “I coulda been popular by signing Kyoto, which is a flawed treaty!” declared Chimpy.
Turned off TV, back to watching the snow fall.
I remember being pissed off in 3d grade because the Nixon and Wallace supporters in my class (which was everybody but me) kept tearing down my Humphrey signs!
One of the weirdest things the Chimp said was allowing that Gitmo had hurt his popularity somewhat, but that them thar countries that was a criticizin’ weren’t keen on taking any of the detainees off our hands.
wtf? Why should, say, France, take our detainees and imprison them for us? I just found that extremely odd.
Especially when among the more recent countries to refuse detainees is Australia, which has never criticized Gitmo in the way Bush means.
“Popularity” is a word he keeps using, turning it into a straw man for something….
Whenever any question touches on the idea of elected officials carrying out the people’s will, he calls it “being popular.” like it was high school.
Joe did say that. He said something like” When journalists go in they say “Look at this atrocity and they don’t know the back story”
Back story: War victors decide to give some land to some folks. Unfortunately, they gave those folks somebody else’s land, rather than some of the victors’ own land. The former residents are pissed. The end.
“Being popular” = “Not listening to that voice that keeps saying, “Kill ’em, Kill ’em ALLLLL”.
It’s Hard Work!
Whenever any question touches on the idea of elected officials carrying out the people’s will, he calls it “being popular.” like it was high school.
In his mind he’s still a prep school cheerleader.
I love how people point to 24 and basically say “My fantasy of this highly stylized and fictional universe, complete with all of the convenient plot devices, should be implemented in the real world. If it was, I just KNOW that everyone would respond exactly as scripted”.
I’ve been trying to live that way for a while now. Except that I want my life to resemble a Peter North movie. Needless to say, I am constantly disappointed; I suppose the 24 fanboys are too.
Embrace me
You sweet embraceable ewe…
Oh, that’s ba-a-a-a-d.
I hope you’re feeling sheepish.
I hope you’re feeling sheepish.
I expect he’ll be on the lamb after that one.
Except that I want my life to resemble a Peter North movie
Damn straight. I want my life to have Tara Patrick, not Warren Tara.
It might help to read the fucking memo once in a while.
For the “back story” see Joe the Plumber’s column!