If It’s 2007, It Must Be Dershowitz Advocating Torture Again
Okay, Alan let’s roll:
Although I am personally opposed to the use of torture …
Oops, sorry. We began with the most ass-tastically ridiculous statement in your latest homage to fingernail-extraction. Let’s start again from the beginning. It may take a while to rewind the tape, Dersh, so perhaps you might take the opportunity to step out to do some comparison shopping for pliers, testicle clamps and the like. There’s a sale on Medieval racks at the Home Depot, we hear.
Ahem.
The party will lose the presidential race if it defines itself as soft on terror.
BY ALAN DERSHOWITZ
Wednesday, November 7, 2007 12:01 a.m. ESTI recently had occasion to discuss the Bush administration’s war on terrorism with one of the highest ranking former officials responsible for planning that war. He asked me what I thought the administration’s biggest mistake was.
Aw, screw it. It hurts our eyes to wade through your rambling attempt to, yet again, dig out a loop-hole for torture in the eroding pile of sand that is our nation’s moral high ground. To put legalese lipstick on your piggish surrender of our most basic rights, just so you might one day be able to remove the rubber sheets from your piss-drenched bed.
Why do you do it? Why do you show up every four years or so to prattle on about ridiculous “ticking time-bomb” scenarios and lobby for the most insanely destructive power we could possibly give to the state? Is it a leap year thing? Or did you recently catch ‘Saw III’ and it got you thinking?
Look here, asshole. We’ve said it before, but we’ll say it again. If this was good enough for Thomas Jefferson …
It is incumbent on those only who accept of great charges, to risk themselves on great occasions, when the safety of the nation, or some of its very high interests are at stake. An officer is bound to obey orders; yet he would be a bad one who should do it in cases for which they were not intended, and which involved the most important consequences. The line of discrimination between cases may be difficult; but the good officer is bound to draw it at his own peril, and throw himself on the justice of his country and the rectitude of his motives.
… then, goddamit, it’s good enough for us. Seriously, what part of that don’t you understand?
Hey, Demosthenes, a knobhead is a knobhead is a knobhead. You can’t convince someone who lives in a comic book world that there is no Caped Crusaders, and you can’t convince them that Mooslems aren’t all fiendishly planning to steal their women and rape their cattle.
heh.
“If I have left in the breasts of my fellow citizens a sentiment of satisfaction…”
Is it just me, or do all the other commentors on Jaun Cole’s blog sound gaye?
The fact is
I don’t think Tha Dersh is really one of the pants-pissers. He just likes the thought of being able to hurt other people without fear of punishment, and the whole “NineElevenChangedEVVYTing!!!1!” philosophy provides an excuse for his natural tendencies. Not that he isn’t a giant publicity-seeking jet-propelled turd on legs, but he’s never pretended to be anything else, for what little that’s worth.
“Qetesh said,
… and you can’t convince them that Mooslems aren’t all fiendishly planning to steal their women and rape their cattle.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEIZ_FFmjnw
Osama El Guapo. The ultimate bane of wingnuts. First he’ll take your job, then he’ll take your women, then he’ll force you to convert to Sharia and eat tacos three meals a day while working in his Shredder Cheese mines.
Although I am personally opposed to the use of napalm on nuns and kittens, if other people — better-qualified than me — decide that it is necessary, I defer to their better judgement. As long as I’m not personally held responsible.
I had a little respect for Alan Dershowitz before 9/11, because he was a voice of sanity among the chattering classes then obsessed with Clinton’s cock. As early as January of 2002 he was saying that if you get a warrant, torture is just peachy, though he remains personally opposed to it. Yeah, fine distinction there, Al.
Alan says what will get him hired on any show for any amount of time.
Period.
Next.
He’s the Ann Coulter of the HireMeBoringites that actually used to defend the constitution.
He’s boring and irrelevant, doesn’t have an honest bone about him anymore, and lives on an income based entirely on going on talkshows and lecture circuits as his idiot self. If he were actually spineful then he would not be making bucks on the right wing lecture circuit.
Add it up. Everyone has their price. He’d agree to a price before one was even named as long as it involved selling out his entire history of defending the Bill of Rights. “10 Bucks? I’m sold! Jail all those niggers!”
One of these days his persistance will pay off. He will get his Nobel Peace Prize.
Hey, at least while he’s writing nonsense he can’t be simultaneously crushing the careers of academics he doesn’t care for, or suppressing freedom of speech in Britain. I say, more nonsense from the Dersh, 24/7 if possible.
It’s not like anybody reads it.
But… They see Thomas Jefferson as Jack Bauer:
Its always this very narrow little example i.e. YOU KNOW for certain a bomb is coming and YOU KNOW for certain the person you’re holding has the information and YOU KNOW for certain that it will wreak havoc and YOU KNOW for certain it will yadda yadda yadda.
Let’s play the same game…
WHAT IF they went to the wrong address and WHAT IF they grabbed a Father of 3 and WHAT IF he doesn’t know anything and WHAT IF you maim him for life and WHAT IF that leaves him unable to care for his children and WHAT IF those children grow up poor and WHAT IF they don’t get an education and WHAT IF one of them doesn’t find the cure for the common cold?
I recently had occasion to discuss the Bush administration’s war on terrorism with one of Tom Friedman’s taxi drivers. He asked me what I thought about that 4 legged chick in India.
I told him that George Bush should have immediately gone bipenis following the attacks of 9/11. President Roosevelt had two penises and invited Republicans to join his closet as the U.S. prepared to fight the Germans and the Japanese, and President Lincoln (hubba hubba) had included political opponents in his efforts to preserve the union (if you know what I mean). Creating a united political front against an external enemy may blunt the partisan advantage expected from a successful military effort, but it helps to keep the country together at a time when partisan bickering can undercut the effort. The former Tom Friedman taxi driver, inexplicably, told me to fuck off.
Now the Democrats appear to be making the same mistake as they move toward what seems to be an inevitable retaking of the White House. Most of the Democratic presidential candidates are seeking partisan advantage from what many Americans see as the Bush failures in the war against terrorism and especially its extension to Iraq and possibly, in the future, the world.
This pacifistic stance appeals to the sissy wing of the democratic electorate, which may have some influence on the outcome of democratic primaries, but which is far less likely to determine the outcome of the general election. Most Americans–Dumbasses, Retards, couchsurfers and just plain stupids–want a president who will be well-hung, hopefully with multiple penises, and who will do everything in his or her lawful power to explain that last episode of The Sapranos.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans may watch Paris Hilton or cheer Brittiny Spears floppy vagina, but tens of billions want the Hiltons and vaginas of our nation as far away as possible from influencing national security policy. That is why Rudy Giuliani, a man of giant penis proportion, seems to be doing surprisingly well among many segments of the dumbass, ranging from total dumbasses to Republicans and even some on the religious right.
It may seem strange that a candidate, who came to national prominence as the New York mayor, and one with a mixed record in that job, would be the choice of so many on issues, despite his lack of experience. But the post- 9/11 Rudy conveys a sense of toughness, of no-nonsense defense of America, a giant hairless penis.
I am not suggesting that Democratic candidates seek to emulate Mr. Giuliani. How can they, the dry floppy vaginas?? But they cannot ignore his wide stance if they want to succeed in the 2008 election, as distinguished from selected state primaries. Marginal Democratic candidates certainly benefit from moving to the left on national security issues, but serious candidates–candidates who want to have any realistic chance of growing a penis–must not allow themselves to be pushed, shaved or even gangbanged away from a strong commitment to strong national penis.
Consider, for example, the contentious and emotionally laden issue of the use of torture in securing preventive intelligence information about imminent acts of terrorism–the so-called “blonde bimbo” scenario. I am not now talking about the routine use of torture in interrogation of suspects or the humiliating misuse of sexual taunting that infamously occurred on that horrid Jessica Simpson reality show. I am talking about that rare situation described by former President PENIS in an interview with National Public Radio:
“From out of the sky, Soviet & Cuban troops begin landing on the football field of a Colorado high school. In seconds, the paratroops have attacked the school & sent a group of teenagers fleeing into the mountains. Armed only with hunting rifles, pistols & bows and arrows, the teens struggles to survive the bitter winter & Soviet KGB patrols hunting for them”
He said Congress should draw a narrow statute “which would permit Jack Bauer to “take personal responsibility” for authorizing torture in such an extreme situation. Sen. John “Crazy As A Loon” McCain has also said that as president he would take responsibility for authorizing torture in that “one in a million” situation.
Although I am personally opposed to the use of torture, and have never personally died in multiple wetsuits with a dildo up my ass, I have no doubt that any president–indeed any leader of a democratic nation–indeed any man with multiple penises–would in fact authorize some forms of torture against a captured terrorist if he believed that this was the only way of securing information necessary to prevent an imminent mass casualty attack. The only dispute is whether he would do so openly with accountability or secretly with deniability. The former seems more consistent with democratic theory, the latter with typical political hypocrisy. Sometimes I don’t even know what I’m saying.
There are some who claim that torture is a nonissue because it never works–it only produces false information. This is simply not true, as evidenced by the many decent members of the French Resistance who, under Nazi torture, disclosed the locations of their closest friends and relatives.
The kind of torture that President Clinton was talking about is not designed to secure confessions of past crimes, but rather to obtain real time, actionable intelligence deemed necessary to prevent an act of mass casualty terrorism and perhaps get members of the fag french to disclose the location of their families to Nazis.
Recently, Israeli security officials, who are not unlike Nazis nowadays, confronted a blonde-bimbo situation. Unfortunately I’m having difficulty finding information on that because every google search for “Israeli blonde bombshell” turns up stories about bombings. Anyway, several days before Yom Kippur, they received credible information that a suicide bomber was planning to blow himself up in a crowded synagogue on the holiest day of the Jewish year. After a gun battle in which an Israeli soldier was killed, the commander of the terrorist cell in Nablus was captured. Interrogation led to the location of the suicide bomb in a Tel Aviv apartment. Israel denies that it uses torture and I am aware of no evidence that it did so to extract life-saving information in this case.
But what if lawful interrogation failed to uncover the whereabouts of the suicide bomber? What other forms of pressure should be employed in this situation? Would simply waggling multiple dry floppy vaginas suffice?
This brings us to disco. Disco is a genre of dance-oriented pop music that was popularized in dance clubs (discothèques) in the mid-1970s. Disco songs usually have soaring, often reverberated vocals over a steady four-on-the-floor beat, an eighth note (quaver) or sixteenth note (semi-quaver) hi-hat pattern with an open hi-hat on the off-beat, and a prominent, syncopated electric bass line. Strings, horns, electric pianos, and electric guitars create a lush background sound. Orchestral instruments such as the flute are often used for solo melodies, and unlike in rock, lead guitar is rarely used.
Well-known mid-1970s disco performers included Abba, Boney M., Chic, Bee Gees, Donna Summer, Eruption, Gloria Gaynor, Diana Ross, the Village People, KC and The Sunshine Band, the Jackson 5, and Barry White. While performers and singers garnered the lion’s share of public attention, the behind-the-scenes producers played an important role in disco, since they often wrote the songs and created the innovative sounds and production techniques that were part of the “disco sound”
The members of the judiciary committee who voted against Judge Mukasey, because of his unwillingness to support an absolute prohibition on waterboarding and all other forms of torture, should be asked the direct question: Would you authorize the use of waterboarding, or other non-lethal forms of torture, if you believed that it was the only possible way of saving the lives of hundreds of Americans in a situation of the kind faced by Israeli authorities on the eve of Yom Kippur? And how do you feel about disco? Do you do the hustle? Do you feel that the Stones sold out with “Missing You”? Have you ever touched yourself to Rod Stewart’s “If You Think I’m Sexy”? Do You think I am batshit insane?
Perhaps political campaigns and confirmation hearings are not the appropriate fora in which to conduct subtle and difficult debates about tragic choices that a president or attorney general may face. Perhaps these issues would be better discussed in dark smoke-filled rooms by heavy-jowled Cheneys with multiple penises. But in no way should they be discussed by hypocritical public posturing people I don’t like who, in private, would almost certainly give me sweet sweet toilet head.
Unless the Democratic Party–and particularly their eventual creepy dyko candidate for president–is perceived as strong and smart on national defense and prevention of terrorism, the Bush White House may be proved to have made a clever partisan decision by refusing to make the war against terrorism a bipenis issue. The Democrats may lose the presidency if they are seen as the party of SadlyNo, DU FUnny, Boobs and Bandaids, and that Laurie Kunich person.
Democrats will only win if they could possibly figure out how to grow on tiny penis.
Mr. Manischewitz is a penis. He is the author, most recently, of “Finding My Penis: A Lost Penis, Penis penis, and the Penis Penis penis,” .
WHAT IF they went to the wrong address and WHAT IF they grabbed a Father of 3 and WHAT IF he doesn’t know anything and WHAT IF you maim him for life and WHAT IF that leaves him unable to care for his children and WHAT IF those children grow up poor and WHAT IF they don’t get an education and WHAT IF one of them doesn’t find the cure for the common cold?
The fact is Personal Responsibility is not a burden, it’s a blessing.
Wow, lay off the methamphetamine, brother. That’s some long, stupefying gabba gabba hey. “This brings us to disco.” Indeed. Doesn’t it always come back to the disco?
Wow, lay off the methamphetamine, brother. That’s some long, stupefying gabba gabba
Hey, You think you are gonna make the big bucks on the talk circuit with your 3 sentence shtik?
hey. “This brings us to disco.” Indeed. Doesn’t it always come back to the disco?
If you would take the time to read you will notice i also delved deeply into the penis issue, an issue that i think we all will agree is very important.
OK, can someone tell me when it becomes acceptable to say that perhaps some of Mr. Dershowit’s opinions are attributable to his being a Great Big Jew?
Are we still not allowed to look at his opinions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or any related matter, in the light of the fact that he’s a Great Big Jew?
Is it still not permissible to suggest that a public intellectual’s opinions are driven by his or her religion, when that religion is either Christianity, or especially Judaism?
Is it still not permissible to suggest that a public intellectual’s opinions are driven by his or her religion, when that religion is either Christianity, or especially Judaism?
Many of my opinions are certainly driven by my atheism.
Well, it seems obvious to me that those who advocate the use of torture really don’t care about gathering information. It’s just like those death penalty advocates who say the death penalty is to protect us from monsters, or to somehow deter others from committing the same vile crimes. They are both, of course, about punishment and revenge, which as far as I can tell are about all that are left of our great American values. Oh, and hating gays and foreigners, of course. God bless the US!
OK, can someone tell me when it becomes acceptable to say that perhaps some of Mr. Dershowit’s opinions are attributable to his being a Great Big Jew?
Although, what are you saying? That Jews are somehow inherently more pro-torture?
Certainly. But what of Mr. Dershowits’ opinions?
I find it revealing that while you proudly declare the anti-religious basis of your own opinions, you fail to endorse the notion that perhaps “many of” Dershowits’ opinions are “driven by” his Judaism.
And it is exactly thus that opposition to torture is framed as antisemitism.
Nice work there, “atheist.”
The worst part of the Dershowitz phenom is how the arguments of a major Harvard man are basically really stupid, how his scholarship was shown to be a joke by Finkelstein. Emperor’s clothes, indeed.
Although I am personally opposed to the use of torture …
Is this like those sentences that begin, “I’m not a racist…” and inevitably end up saying something *incredibly* racist?
Hey, some of my best friends are personally opposed to the use of torture.
Look, I’ve got nothing against torturers, I just wouldn’t want my sister to marry one , OK?
And it is exactly thus that opposition to torture is framed as antisemitism.
huh?
maybe the frame was this:
OK, can someone tell me when it becomes acceptable to say that perhaps some of Mr. Dershowit’s opinions are attributable to his being a Great Big Jew?
“Have you ever touched yourself to Rod Stewart’s “If You Think I’m Sexy”? Do You think I am batshit insane?”
I think these are the essential questions of our time; the questions that beg to be answered. Or at least touched, furtively, under the table.
Grampaw, you are playing directly into the dishonest Dershowitzian rhetorical system that conflates Judaism with Zionism with Likudism and so on. Is Dershowitz regular arguments for legalizing torture a way of inoculating the Likudniks from criticism from American humanists? I have no idea – maybe someone who knows the ins and outs of Israeli politics and intelligence could fill that in.
Dershowitz is definitely giving cover to the neocons – he came out with his pro-torture arguments right after Tora Bora, which was the first sign to me that something fishy was going on. Hello! Welcome to the third season of Babylon 5: you are soaking in it!
Way to add to the discussion, there, George. Lot of original thought in there.
Now.
Go on, drop the “Great Big,” and then tell me when it will become acceptable to attribute some of Dershowit’s opinions to his Judaism.
After all, there’s no problem in attributing the opinions of other public figures to to their islam(ofasc)(ism), or other (non-protestant-or-Judaic) religious convictions, is there?
Grampaw:
and then
Are you just trying to play gotcha at all costs, or what? It really looks like you’re latching onto even the slightest hint of a suggestion of anti-Semitism so you can be Morally Outraged? Hell, you’re the first person here that hinted that Dershowitz’ opinions are somehow tainted by his Judaism.
Xenos:
I’m afraid I can’t respond to comments that are so far from grammatical convention that they leave me wondering not only what side they might have been taking, but on which issue, as well.
Never did watch the fifth season of Babylon 5. Or even much of the fourth season. When a team of writers is obviously and frantically trying to rewrite the final two acts in mid-performance, I’d rather not witness the wreckage, thanks.
N.C., your obtuseness is almost charming.
It might be difficult for you, but just as a mental exercise, try to distinguish these two ideas:
1) Dershowitz’s opinions are due in part to his Judaism.
2) It is not prima facie true, as “atheist” suggested in this quote:
that attributing one person’s opinions to Judaism is de facto stereotyping, and by induction, antisemitism.
Gramps:
I am being perfectly grammatical. I am just not revealing my personal political bias (pro-Judiasm, sentimental pro-Zionism, very anti-colonialism/anti-Likudism, fwiw). This is not an effort to be cryptic, just to address the issue in neutral terms. If that sounds dishonest to you, that reveals that you are driven by your own agenda.
That agenda appears to be good, old-fashioned Jew-hating. Bugger off.
Poor Gramps.
Jumped in the center ring with his nose blinking and pants on fire and then demanded to know why the crowd was laughing.
Grampaw,
I don’t see a link between Dershowitz’s religion and his weaselly advocation of torture. Perhaps you could point it out, since clearly you see something that the rest of us do not.
Frankly, I’m assuming he’s Jewish based on his name and the prior context here. I have no knowledge of his religious beliefs, nor do I really care. I do know that he views torture like it’s an episode of “Dirty Jobs”. And for someone who teaches at Harvard that’s a pretty sad thing for the entire country.
Grampaw, can you point to an article or anything where Dershowitz has ever claimed that BECAUSE HE IS JEWISH that means he is espousing GODs personal opinion?
I’ve meant dozens of Fundies and read dozens more who do it ALL the time…
That’s the difference.
But what about the penis? And the disco?
Granpaw: Jewhatersayswhat?
Us: What?
Granpaw: Ha! Jew hater!
You did catch me at 7 AM, so chalk it up to morning brain fuzzies.
So, thus, what are these solely Jewish-influenced ideas Dershowitz has, since you’re being coy about actually presenting a thesis besides “hey I think Dershowits’z’e’s’sizzle has some of them thar Heeb idears”?
I couldn’t even tell what the heck Grampaw was originally trying to say. Actually I still can’t. Now he believes that I’ve caught myself in some kind of trap.
Uh… ok
Gary Ruppert said:
I love when Real Gary states facts. Sure does suck to be a Losercrat, eh Gary? Well, I guess an obvious one outta four ain’t bad…
Hey, Mr. D!
C’mon for a ride on my waterboard.
It isn’t torture.
Then maybe we’ll hang some nails, know what I mean?
I find it hard to believe “one of the highest ranking former officials responsible for planning that war” would bother to ask anyone what their “biggest mistake” was….
If torture is necessary in imaginary situations where hundreds or thousands of people are presumed to be at risk, then it is also necessary where one person is at risk, or believed to be at risk.
If you come up with hypothetical scenarios in which people agree that they wish for large numbers of people to be saved from mass terrorist attacks, you must also explain why a single woman must be allowed to be at risk from an escaped rapist because you don’t wish to torture informants in her situation.
If torture is justified for large scale situation, it is justified for solitary situations.
And so if torture is ever justified, torture is always justified.
Incidentally, although the right wing strain of thought holds that one can only oppose torture out of misplaced concern for the feelings of the person to be tortured, it is also possible that you oppose torture because you don’t want your society to be a society of torturers.
Similarly, the right wing strain of thought believes that the only reason to care about fair trials, standards of evidence, etc., is because liberals weakly overidentify with the accused; once again, those who wished to found a decent society upheld such standards because to abandon those standards is to abandon the decency of the society prosecuting a trial.
El Cid = solid reasoning as a basis for sound positions
Yeah, Gary, what was that about Ernie Filcher winning the Kentucky Governor’s race?
Dear old Kentucky. We may not be right all the time, but sometimes we hit the right track.
I missed the press release for Dershowitz being employed by AIPAC. Sorry. I guess being pro-torture is ramping up to his defense of ethnic cleansing, but only as it applies to Semites. But only Semites that worship in mosques.
I couldn’t even tell what the heck Grampaw was originally trying to say. Actually I still can’t. Now he believes that I’ve caught myself in some kind of trap.
He is trolling for someone to agree with the antisemetic conclusions deriving from the assumptions he was asserting. Hysterical Woman got it right, above.
[…] nut note? Dershowitz, the man behind torture warrants, finds waterboarding may not violate due process. […]
sentimental pro-Zionism, very anti-colonialism/anti-Likudism
How does that work?
The party will lose the presidential race if it defines itself as soft on terror.
Cuz if you don’t torture, you’re not like them, and we can’t have that.
Hrm.
I am morally certain that the terrorist mastermind Alan Dershowitz is about to unleash another editorial upon the helpless and unwitting American masses. There’s only one way to stop him, and that involves the use of handcuffs, K-Y jelly, and a soldering iron.
But what about the penis? And the disco?
Fuckin old people always fuck up the threads. Fuck old people.
Hmm. Grampaw . I’m kinda partial to the Jew-hating, thread-jacking old coot.
Oh, wait. No I’m not.
AND George Washington on torture:
“Should any American soldier be so base and infamous as to injure any [prisoner] … I do most earnestly enjoin you to bring him to such severe and exemplary punishment as the enormity of the crime may require. Should it extend to death itself, it will not be disproportional to its guilt at such a time and in such a cause… for by such conduct they bring shame, disgrace and ruin to themselves and their country.”
– George Washington, charge to the Northern Expeditionary Force, Sept. 14, 1775
[…] of Newshoggers has a fine takedown of Dershowitz, so I don’t have to write one. (See also Sadly, No.) I only want to add that favoring strong and effective antiterrorism measures and favoring […]
sentimental pro-Zionism, very anti-colonialism/anti-Likudism
How does that work?
The original Zionists were socialists, and many were atheists. Ever read The Chosen? The Ultra-orthodox, now a critical component of the Likud-dominated ruling coalition, were originally opposed to Zionism because it was a secular, modernist project. I call it ‘sentimental Zionism’ because the Israel of, say, 1948, is a very different country than it is today.
Furthermore, one can support the project of the Jewish Homeland without supporting the settlements in the West Bank, for example.
If Israelis can love their country and disagree with their government, why can’t the rest of us do so as well?
I suppose it’d be ok to equate a person’s religion to their strongly-held moral values (views on torture), especially if they themselves do so. But calling the man a GREAT BIG JEW is a hint that the speaker/writer is a bigot. Is Dersh BIG? Everywhere or just in places, like his jewishness? Are Catholics GREAT BIG CATHOLICS when they oppose abortion?
Hmm. Grampaw . I’m kinda partial to the Jew-hating, thread-jacking old coot.
Oh, wait. No I’m not.
Could be worse. Mal de mer has all that, with the addition of “internetting is serious business/stop laughing, you’re to blame here!” lunacy.
Man, I love the smell of masterful smackdown in the morning. Smells like Grandpaw.
That was playdough and bacon levels of penis and disco introspection. How much of that did you crib from ishkur anyways?
OK, can someone tell me when it becomes acceptable to say that perhaps some of Mr. Dershowit’s opinions are attributable to his being a Great Big Jew?
And here I thought Dershowitz’s love of torture was because he is a Great Big Douchebag.
Ah, mal de mer. Whatever happened to that… ole… er… person, anyway? When I first found S,N!, (s)he(it) seemed like a regular ole daffy contributor. Then something happened, like (s)hi(z)(zit)(‘s) own “omg 9/11 changed everything!” moment. A clue for this DFH, please.
I’ve seen a little inhumanity in my lifetime. And it is completely predictable who will commit the worst of the atrocities upon their fellow humans. They are weak, scared little people who have not found a way to feel strong and powerful in the eyes of their peers. They hate the people who aren’t always terrified, who will meet a stranger with a smile and a handshake or a straight, hard left with equal willingness. And they find that when they hurt someone, no matter how much weaker that person is, they feel something stirring, a sense of power and domination that they have never felt otherwise.
Had we given it the slightest thought in late ’99, we could have predicted this from bush…
mikey
Mal had a relative killed in the Israeli bombing of Lebanon. Member of his wife’s family, if I recall. His grief and sadness hardened in about three days into hatred for the US, Israel and the people who he sees as enabling the murder and oppression in the mid east.
Sad thing is, he lost all perspective. It wasn’t enough to blame the people responsible, he felt it was necessary to blame entire swaths of the population. Including, sadly, Sadly.
I liked Mal, he was and still is a good man struggling with pain and loss. I have no doubt he will find his way back, although to what extent he participates in a forum like this is certainly in doubt…
mikey
A relevant thread on Mal de Mer.
http://www.sadlyno.com/archives/3354.html
So when will Dershowitz, or any of the other torture-advocates, step forward and say that we need to waterboard Steven Hatfill?
There WAS another terrorist attack on US soil after 9/11, the attackers were never found or punished.
If torture really could get good information, you would think that the torture-advocates would be champing at the bit to waterboard Hatfill (and whoever had access to the anthrax stocks at Ft. Detrick) and get to the bottom of the anthrax attacks.
But maybe they already suspect where that particular trail of bread crumbs goes, and don’t want anyone to go there…
Weenies like Al the Dish have this fatuous belief that because their existential fear is so pure and strong and sweet it has attained Wonder Twins Power that can shape and change sentence logic itself into the shape and form of a moist diaper.
I am a-skeered. Therefore, you are teh suxxor.
Kung Fu Monkey did a marvelous job of leaving Dershowitz’ moral authority in a heap of smoking rubble.
The party will lose the presidential race if it defines itself as soft on terror.
Big Al D., the original concern trool.
Whoa.
I thought Gramps was Mencken’s personal troll.
This is a DA thread, in case you hadn’t noticed, Grampaw–you dimwitted, incredibly obvious, utterly predictable, totally (and repeatedly) pwned asswipe.
Get back in yer corner and drool on yerself till HTML has time to smack you around again.
And thank you, Matt T., for summing it up:
And here I thought Dershowitz’s love of torture was because he is a Great Big Douchebag.
Damn it you stole my Douchebag joke!
Dershowitz has been pretty bitter since Noam Chomsky used Dershowitz’ own words to reveal him as an outright liar to the Boston Globe. But then, Dershowitz is the kind of guy who would think he could lie about what was happening in another country (Israel, in this case) and is shocked that anyone may actually know the local language and may go to the trouble of tracking down his lies.
Dershowitz’ apologetics for torture is rooted in his apologetics for Israel. He was whitewashing and condoning torture in Israel nearly twenty years ago and has somewhat more recently extended the apologia to torture committed by the US.
His views on, and defense of, Israel are rooted in his idiosyncratic interpretation of his Jewishness, not so much as a religion, but as a culture and ethnicity. In essence, he is a believer in Jewish supremacy in Israel. Things that he would find reprehensible if done by non-Jews to Jews, he finds perfectly acceptable, and in fact, beyond criticism, when done by Jews in Israels against non-Jews. Just as most, but not all, white supremacists are in fact white, most , but not all, Jewish supremacists are Jewish. This does not mean that all, or even most, Jews believe in their own superiority, any more than it means that all, or even most, whites believe in their own superiority. But the attitude does exist and Dersh is a prominent example of it.
Its a valid point to mention that someone’s interpretation of their religion or ethnicity can mold their outlook on life. But that interpretation can vary widely from the one person to the next within any identity group. Martin Luther King’s actions and speech were rooted in his Christian beliefs, as are the Rev. Fred Phelps’, and yet they represent diametrically opposed strains within Christianity itself. Norman Finkelstein, who has written and spoken out consistently for the Palestinians, is just as driven by his interpretation of his own Jewishness as Dershowitz is by his. In Finkelstein case, it has resulted in his stand for the universalist strain in Jewish thought and for speaking up for the downcast, whereas Dersh is driven by a tribalist streak. The racist Meir Kahane’s outlook was molded by his sense of his own Jewishness, just as Felicia Langer, a courageous Israeli human rights attorney, had her outlook molded by her sense of Jewishness. Having your beliefs rooted in your sense of identity, whether religious, or ethnic or whatever, is not necessarily a bad thing, or a good thing. Its all a matter of what those beliefs are and whether they promote justice and compassion or hatred and the corruption of the human spirit.
So in the end, yup, Dershowitz loves torture because he’s a Great Big Douchebag. Nuf said.
You forgot the fresh-baked cookies, straight out of the oven.
RandomObserver,
No one really owns a good douchebag joke. It’s sort of like a good bag of weed. Please, share the joy with me.
Its a valid point to mention that someone’s interpretation of their religion or ethnicity can mold their outlook on life.
I would point out, merely for the sake of pointing out, that your ultimate conclusion follows the flipside of this sentence; that is, “someone’s outlook on life can mold someone’s interpretation of their religion or ethnicity”.
To direct this, Dershowitz is a great big fucking douchebag. He is, perhaps, derived from the Platonic ideal of douche. In this case, it is not truthfully relevant whether Dershowitz is a Jew, a Caucasian, or even a man. He would still be a fucking douche were any of those conditions different, merely a different face covering the douchebag. Were he Catholic, he would be a torture-apologizing Catholic. Were he a black man, he would be a torture-apologizing black man. Were he a woman… well, you see where I’m going with this.
To say “well you know, since Dershowtiz is a douchebag, and he’s a Jew, it’s a valid point” is to fall into grampaw’s deadly web.
Dershowitz is a Jew. Dershowitz is a douchebag.
But he is a douchebag independently of being a Jew, and he is a Jew independently of being a douchebag.
So in the end, yup, Dershowitz loves torture because he’s a Great Big Douchebag.
He is personally opposed to torture, but he will still justify it by citing its use by the Nazis in occupied Europe. The dude’s mind must have more internal compartments than the Titanic.
Not much Shorter Allan Dershowitz: Because the Japanese used teh torture and they tortured the Chinese and the Chinese now torture Chinese and Tibet is sorta near Kashmir and they have bombs and teh Islam therefore Keifer Sutherland and fruit roll-ups.
I am a Democratic Party member and I think Dershowitz may be onto something:
How about Democratic Party Candidates pledging that they are “personally against the use of torture” but because they are all Big He Men, they want to see the USA use torture all the time and everywhere, even on innocent people.
That way America will know Democrats are tough son of a guns!
Torture: It’s not just for Nazis anymore! In fact, all the cool kids are doing it!
Get back in yer corner and drool on yerself till HTML has time to smack you around again.
On the plus side, it’s nice to see they finally have the interweb in the nursing home now.
Dersh is all about Israel. Israel is a moral beacon unto the world. Israel tortures, therefore torture is just.
Someone should file a complaint with the bar and get this shyster’s license to practice law revoked.
HOW CAN A FUCKING JEW SIDE WITH TORTURERS?
HOW?
DID 6,000,000,000 JEWS DIE FOR NOTHING?
But he is a douchebag independently of being a Jew, and he is a Jew independently of being a douchebag.
Just for the sake of intellectual honesty, I would ask that you look at exactly the moments he made his decisions about torture. Dershowitz was a fairly orthodox civil liberatrian until ’99. He considered accusations that Israel tortured anyone as a sort of blood libel until the day the Israeli Supreme Court asked for the sort of torture warrant that he afterwards subscribed to. At that exact moment he hit the WSJ and said it was a great idea. Later the Israeli Supreme Court said no, that’s bullshit, torture is illegal, but do what you have to do and there may be a legal defense after the fact and Dershowitz hit the WSJ to give his new opinion which I guess serendipitously coincided with the Israeli Supreme Court’s new decision.
The guy wrote a book a called “The Case for Israel”, and it’s so incredibly obvious that he think’s he’s Israel’s lawyer it’s embarassing. Yeah, he’s a douchebag independently of being a Jew and vice-versa, but I think if you crawled inside his head he wouldn’t be able to make that distinction himself.
I think what makes the issue confusing for people is that Judaism is less obviously factionalized than is Christianity, so people have a tendency to see Judaism as a monolithic religion. When Fred Phelps acts the asshole, people don’t necessarily chalk that sort of behavior up to “Christianity”.
Judaism is factionalized and politicized, just like any other religions. And there are definitely types of Jews who are assholes, just like there are types within any other religion that are assholes – and it’s not anti-Semitism to say so, any more than calling Fred Phelps an asshole is anti-Christian, or calling Osama bin Laden an asshole is anti-Muslim. And in both cases, the assholery of these people is related to their religious views.
I mean, what else would you call a pro-Nazi Jewish terrorist group? Not saying the Dersh is a Lehi sympathizer, mind – just pointing out that you can, on occasion, call groups of Jews assholes without worrying overmuch about getting stuck with the “Nazi” tag.
Come to think of it, I guess I’m not even saying that the Dersh’s assholery is really related to his Jewishness. I’d have to think about it more than I have before I’d be willing to say that.
Dershowitz’s Jewishness represents the road that the metaphorical car of his douchebaggery travels down. Nothing more. It is the random harbor where he maintains a slip for his solipsistic sloop, the Douchebag Lady.
If that makes any sense at all, and it really doesn’t.
I mean, what else would you call a pro-Nazi Jewish terrorist group?
Douchebags, probably.
See, what point I’m trying to make here is that Dersh being a douchebag is really not some damning indictment of Judaism as a whole, just of him. If he were a Palestinian lawyer, you can be pretty certain he’d produce the same stupid argument, just for the other side.
He’s a douchebag. That’s it. Falling into the trap that somehow his “heritage” is what makes him that douchebag is foolish. There’s thousands, if not millions of Jews, Americans, or Jewish-Americans who are not Dershbags.
Please, let Dershbag’s douchbaggery taint his Dershbagness alone.
Patkin, no one here is claiming that it is “some damning indictment of Judaism”, anymore than we are claiming that Rev. Phelps douchebag-osity is a damning indictment of Christianity, or David Duke’s whiteness is some damning indictment of whites. In fact we are all going out of our way to say that it doesn’t. You are reading something, that we have not said, into what I and others are saying . Duke’s douchebaggery is hung around his “whiteness”, Phelp’s around his “Christianity” and Dersh’s is hung from his twisted sense of his Jewishness, which in his case manifests as an over the top, hypocritical defense of Israel at all cost.
Dersh’s defense of torture, something that a true “civil libertarian” would never condone, is completely tied to his history, over the past 20 odd years, of defending Israel’s use of torture. And his apologetics for Israel are hung from his sense of Jewish superiority; in other words, his sense that Jews are not to be criticized for doing things to non-Jews, that he would be gnashing and wailing about if they were done BY non-Jews TO Jews. And no one is saying that this sense of superiority is some distinctly Jewish trait. There are plenty of ass-hats of all religions, ethnicities, cultures and genders who go around thinking that their identity group is somehow better than the rest, and that different rules apply. Dersh just happens to subscribe to the Jewish flavor of that universal human failing. That’s the point.
solipsistic sloop, the Douchebag Lady.
Sloop Douche B? I wanna go home.
Me, I can live without all this exegesis of Dershowitz’s psychology and motivations. Partly because the wormy little crevices of his mind don’t really deserve that level of attention, and partly because it’s more Krauthammer’s shtik.
That’s the name I was looking for, goddamit. Thx RB.
nos said,
November 7, 2007 at 19:11
sentimental pro-Zionism, very anti-colonialism/anti-Likudism
How does that work?
“The original Zionists were socialists, and many were atheists. Ever read The Chosen? The Ultra-orthodox, now a critical component of the Likud-dominated ruling coalition, were originally opposed to Zionism because it was a secular, modernist project. I call it ’sentimental Zionism’ because the Israel of, say, 1948, is a very different country than it is today.
Furthermore, one can support the project of the Jewish Homeland without supporting the settlements in the West Bank, for example.
If Israelis can love their country and disagree with their government, why can’t the rest of us do so as well?” Why?because the Labor Zionists were Socialist like the NSDAP.was socialist.It was nominally Socialist for Jews by Jews to the exclusion of all others.Most prominently the indigineous residents of that land where they deiged to build this new workers utopia.Most of the modern Socialist movements were built with an aim of international workers solidarity,while Zionist “Socialism”included and excluded based on race,ethnicity,religion.Since there is still dispute as to what makes a Jew I’ll include all three.And I have to say your “sentimentality” for the “Isreal” of 1948 strikes me as either extremely naive or willfully ignorant,I’m hoping for the latter.There has been absolutely no strategic difference between Labor and Likud when it comes to “serious policy”similar to the status of the two major parties in the U.S.1948,Haven’t you ever heard of the Nakba or Der-Yassin??
“The line of discrimination between cases may be difficult; but the good officer is bound to draw it at his own peril, and throw himself on the justice of his country and the rectitude of his motives.”
… and the absolute certainty of a presidential pardon from Dubya.
Such peril, ooooh.