Is Ted Cruz Satan? Discuss.

[taxwonk]

Originally Posted by Adder

Unfortunately, that is not going to happen. Given that?

Don't pardon them. Appoint a special prosecutor (from the ICJ) and let the cases be filed where the prosecutor can make a case. Including w/r/t the current White House occupant.

I would take the same approach to the drone program.

[Icky Thump]

Originally Posted by taxwonk

As much consideration and dignity as we would expect a democratic nation that respects the dignity of a person qua person. What the CIA did (and is still doing) drags us into the deep pond, where the blackest, oiliest slime resides.

Failing that, we should have given the as good treatment as we want for our soldiers, not to mention civilian hostages.

Sorry I think the CIA methods are appropriate ways of dealing with coworkers who fail to shepardize or who ask me questions before checking google.

[taxwonk]

Originally Posted by Adder

Courts have recognized that torture violates customary international law. The US not prosecuting admitted torture undermines the argument that torture is recognized universally as illegal.

A pardon says this president thought what you did was illegal. Doing nothing says perhaps this president does not, which is affirmatively what the prior president and his advisers asserted.

And his performance has established that, even if he thinks it was wrong when his predecessor did it, it's okay when he does it. Because he thinks real hard before he decides to have someone murdered.

[taxwonk]

Originally Posted by Adder

Or, you know, just interrogated without the torture, which is where they gave up all of the useful information they provided anyway.

Or is torture just punishment for being "enemies? If so, how do you justify all the completely innocent people who were tortured?

Come on, Adder. They did it because it was fun. That's why they kept doing it and doing it. Even after they ran out of suspects.

[taxwonk]

Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy

You know my dream? That the US would willingly turn the torturers over to the Hague and make an example to show that international law can work. If Obama did that, he'd have more than earned that nobel prize sitting on his mantle.

2.

Of course, he won't, not the least because he's as guilty as Bush was, and probably still is.

[Not Bob]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

Sorry I think the CIA methods are appropriate ways of dealing with coworkers who fail to shepardize or who ask me questions before checking google.

Shepardize? I miss the old days - bound volume, soft cover, then newsprint.

Oh, and Less replying to a Paigow question with this:

[taxwonk]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

The authoritarian mindset is OK with what you describe, because it's necessary in the perpetual war in which we find ourselves. Anyone who gets on the wrong side of the state and find themselves a victim must have done something wrong. It's important to keep believing that one can control one's own fate, preferably by open carry, and facts which might suggest otherwise must be dealt with harshly.

"If they had done nothing wrong, they wouldn't be defendants."
- Ed Meese

[taxwonk]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

I'm still trying to understand the rationale for a pardon. Is it limited to that issuing a pardon says that the current president believes the conduct is illegal?

If that's the rationale, then should Obama also pardon the cop who murdered Garner?



Or do you believe that a pardon is actually justified here? I don't think you do, because you say you think they should be prosecuted.

A pardon can say pretty much what the President wants it to say, other than a pardon for acts not yet committed. Ford's pardon of Nixon basically pardoned him for everything he did in the White House or while running in the 1972 campaign. It swept in Cambodia, Laos (you know, other states the US has unlawfully bombed in my lifetime), the IRS audit program he set up, the other illegal surveillance he did against his "enemies."

If rendered on a timely enough basis, it can keep certain facts from coming to light at trial, whether the person being pardoned is convicted or not.

[ThurgreedMarshall]

Originally Posted by Not Bob

In my experience, people of all classes and ideologies have their views change as a result of what happens to them or their family members/friends.

This is completely non-responsive. The fact that personal experiences tend to change people is not in dispute. The fact that Republicans somehow are only capable of feeling empathy for anyone because they or a close family member has experienced something identical, is. Although it shouldn't be because that's the way they are.

Originally Posted by Not Bob

My formerly dope smoking friend is active in opposing medical marihuana laws because his kid went from pot to crack in high school and is now in NA. My cousin the banker who went to school on Pell Grants and federal loans, complains about taxes and when I call him on it, says that not everyone should go to college and "it wouldn't kill these young slackers to work for minimum wage for a few years to save for school." My close friend's wife who went to magnet public schools campaigns to cut the school board budget and for the state to give more money to charters instead.

But maybe I'm wrong.

Or maybe you just don't understand the original point. If you're telling me that, for example, people are only capable of feeling empathy for gays who suffer second class citizenship if they have a daughter who is gay, then I'll say you are insane. Yet, time after time, this is exactly what happens to GOP congressmen and senators. They do not feel empathy (and worse yet, actively work to keep gays as second class citizens) until they actually have the exact experience at issue. Do you see why your laundry list of examples above does apply to the conversation?

TM

[taxwonk]

Originally Posted by Icky Thump

Sorry I think the CIA methods are appropriate ways of dealing with coworkers who fail to shepardize or who ask me questions before checking google.

Oh, shit. I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were talking about minions who don't shepardize. Set their nads aflame to re-heat your lunch.

[Not Bob]

Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall

This is completely non-responsive. The fact that personal experiences tend to change people is not in dispute. The fact that Republicans somehow are only capable of feeling empathy for anyone because they or a close family member has experienced something identical, is. Although it shouldn't be because that's the way they are.

Or maybe you just don't understand the original point. If you're telling me that, for example, people are only capable of feeling empathy for gays who suffer second class citizenship if they have a daughter who is gay, then I'll say you are insane. Yet, time after time, this is exactly what happens to GOP congressmen and senators. They do not feel empathy (and worse yet, actively work to keep gays as second class citizens) until they actually have the exact experience at issue. Do you see why your laundry list of examples above does apply to the conversation?

TM

I guess I am just obtuse. I do think less of McCain since 2008 and his generally unremitting hostility to anything Obama says or does, and that is one of the reasons that I think his speech on the senate floor almost immediately after the report was issued was important. I get your point, and I don't think it makes up for Sarah Palin, but that doesn't mean it wasn't also a principled and brave (for DC and GOP politics) thing for him to do.

I think that people can become more and less empathetic based upon their own experiences. Dick Cheney becomes pro-gay marriage because of his daughter while my formerly liberal cousin leads the push to ban food donations downtown because a homeless person took a dump in the parking garage of the building he works at. I think that is responsive to what you and Ty are saying - it isn't just about conservatives changing to become nice because their kid got cancer. Liberals become less empathetic because their kid didn't get accepted at Princeton.

Does it seem like a disproportionate number of the "compassionate" on a single issue Republicans have a personal connection to the issue they are "compassionate" about? Sure.

But not all. Before 9/11, W's signature social policy agenda item was No Child Left Behind, a well-intentioned (if misguided) sweeping reform of education he worked on with Ted Kennedy that was supposed to benefit poor students of color. His own white kids were hardly poor and were busy partying at UT and (I think) Yale at the time, and I don't think there was any relative or family member of his that he was helping. He may have been an unthinking lazy frat bro of a president (and governor - recall his mocking of Karla Faye Tucker after her execution), but I think his concern for poor students of color was real and not motivated in the same way Cheney's concern for gay rights is.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

Issuing a pardon says that the president thinks what you did might be illegal. It also says that president thinks you deserve a pardon despite torturing people. The latter message will be far more resounding.

Resounding with whom? Establishing that the US tortured and did not treat it as illegal, even asserting it was legal, has potential (if mostly somewhat academic) effects, as reflected by the executive director of the ACLU arguing in the New York Times that a pardon is better than doing nothing.

I would rather we prosecute.

Me too, but it sure looks like we're not going to do that.

If not, then state a good reason why we are not prosecuting.

Maybe a detailed explanation of how this really is criminal behavior but we're not going to prosecute it because reasons would have the same effect as the pardons. Don't know.

I do think if the pardon proposal is at all on the table it should come with details and naming names, and explain the reasons for the pardon (i.e., actions taken in good faith our of concern for the national defense against an insidious enemy and in the course of executing official duties).

Query: What happens if some true believer says "I decline the President's pardon, as I did not commit a crime."? That would be awfully interesting, in a bad way, and I suspect he'd have right-wingers lining up to provide his defense.

I don't think you can make any government prosecute you, so I think declining would be irrelevant.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Sidd Finch

I'm still trying to understand the rationale for a pardon. Is it limited to that issuing a pardon says that the current president believes the conduct is illegal?

To have an official statement that the executive believes that this conduct is illegal, so as not to undermine the recognized norm of torture violating international customary law, but stating the reasons for not prosecuting.

Or, as the executive director of the ACLU put it in the NYT:

Pardons would make clear that crimes were committed; that the individuals who authorized and committed torture were indeed criminals; and that future architects and perpetrators of torture should beware. Prosecutions would be preferable, but pardons may be the only viable and lasting way to close the Pandora’s box of torture once and for all.

Or do you believe that a pardon is actually justified here?

I don't know what that means. A pardon is entirely within the discretion of the executive. I would prefer prosecution, but I think its an interesting question as to whether a pardon is better than continuing to decline to prosecute. The two things have exactly that same effect on the offenders.

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally Posted by Not Bob

But not all. Before 9/11, W's signature social policy agenda item was No Child Left Behind, a well-intentioned (if misguided) sweeping reform of education he worked on with Ted Kennedy that was supposed to benefit poor students of color.

You give Bush too little credit. By 9/11 he was already working on his first recession and had his first round of tax cuts, all part of realigning the budget and economy to serve the wealthy. So it's not just passing a bill that put in place backwards educational policy in exchange for promised funding for poor kids that he subsequently gutted that defined his agenda.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by taxwonk

Don't pardon them. Appoint a special prosecutor (from the ICJ) and let the cases be filed where the prosecutor can make a case. Including w/r/t the current White House occupant.

I would take the same approach to the drone program.

I don't think there is U.S. legislation that provides for a special prosecutor and I'm even more certain that the U.S. is not a party to the treaty that would be required to give the ICJ jurisdiction.