i think one of the fundamental divides is whether you believe most people share the same ends even if they disagree about the means, or if you think people have different ends. i tend to believe the former, so no matter how ridiculous i may think someone's idea of how to get somewhere, i nonetheless don't think them evil or assume they're discussing the issue in bad faith.
e.g., i think a higher minimum wage discriminates against/reduces jobs for low-skill people, but i don't think people who want a higher minimum wage are trying to hurt low-skill people. and since we agree about the end -- helping low-skill people to have viable lives, escape from poverty, etc. -- we're just discussing the mechanical issue of how to get somewhere, i'm willing to listen to whatever good idea someone's got.
similarly, i think whatever gov't we have, whether clinton or bush, makes a lot of dumb mistakes. but that doesn't make me think either really has different ends in mind -- they both want american security, strong economy, etc. -- they just disagree about means. but if someone thinks another person desires different ends, there's often no real discussion possible, because ends are far harder to justify rationally compared to means.
OT Clinton on Fox
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THE SECRET HISTORY OF 9/11: HUNTING bin laden
African bombing
African embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi were bombed by al-Qaeda.
On August 7th, 1998, the U.S. African embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi were almost destroyed by truck bombs. Two hundred and twenty-four people died, including twelve Americans. Over five thousand were injured. The investigation lead straight to Osama bin Laden.
In the Situation Room at the White House, Clinton's national security team decided to hit back with cruise missiles. The CIA had received information that bin Laden would be meeting other al-Qaeda leaders at one of his Afghanistan training camps on August 20th, 1998. The cruise missiles fired from the Arabian Sea travelled over Pakistan and landed in the Afghan training camps but narrowly missed bin Laden. Bill Clinton's crisis management team was disappointed, according to the President's Deputy National Security Advisor, James Steinberg, "We had hoped, and there was some reason to think that bin Laden might be there, and he wasn't at the time of the attack. It is a reminder that this is a very, very difficult thing to do. As people correctly said, there is a limited effectiveness to this particular tactic in dealing with this kind of problem. Cruise missiles are not well designed to deal with this kind of threat."
cruise attack
President Clinton attacks Afghan training camps with cruise missiles.
After the failure of the cruise missile attack, President Clinton reversed his position and authorized the CIA to kidnap Osama bin Laden, but now it would be more difficult. Mike Scheuer, the former chief of the bin Laden Unit explains, "He was no longer the blue-collar guy and the lunch bucket. He was moving at different times of the day, different vehicles. He was staying overnight in places away from Tarnak Farm. So we revived it but the chances of success were marginal after the cruise missile attack." "I could tell you where he was last night, but I couldn't tell you where he was going to be tonight and everyday was like that. So you couldn't get ahead of him. We couldn't get our guys out in front of him. We were always trailing about half a day behind," remembers Gary Schroen, the CIA's lead in Afghanistan.
FURTHER READING
Read Hunting bin Laden a web companion to the PBS documentary.
Watch a video interview with ABC reporter John Miller.
Note: CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external sites - links will open in new window
In late December 1998, CIA field agents were finally able to get ahead of Osama bin Laden. They received a tip that he would be coming to visit Kandahar. He would be staying overnight here at the governor's mansion. American ships in the Arabian Sea prepared their cruise missiles to strike the governor's mansion. CIA Agent Gary Schroen e-mailed headquarters --"Hit him tonight--we may not get another chance." At the White House, the military doubted the intelligence and estimated that a cruise missile strike would kill or injure over 200 people. In the end, the attack was cancelled. "It struck me as rather insane, frankly. They decided not to attack bin Laden because he was in a building in fairly close proximity to a mosque. And they were afraid that some of the shrapnel was going to hit the mosque and somehow offend the Muslim world, and so they decided not to shoot on that occasion. That's the kind of reason for not shooting that the policy maker, anyway, came up with endlessly," says Schueur.
The missed opportunities to capture or kill Osama bin Laden in the 1990's were a key topic in the investigations of the 9/11 Commission. Vice Chair Lee Hamilton defends the policy makers at the Clinton White House, "There is always the question that arises -'Who else are you going to kill?' If they're with other people, what's the collateral damage going to be? How many women and children are going to die? How many innocent people are going to die? Those are decisions that a political leader has to, they have to wrestle with those."
James Steinberg,
Former Deputy National Security Advisor
The Clinton Administration's last good chance to kill Osama bin Laden was at a falcon hunting camp in southern Afghanistan in 1999. Falcon hunting is wildly popular with the ultra rich throughout the Arab world. The CIA followed bin Laden to the camp and determined that he was going to stay for a few days. But satellite photos also revealed the presence of a military C-130 aircraft from the United Arab Emirates indicating that senior officials from the UAE government were hunting with bin Laden. Once again the White House decided to stand down. They did not want to take the chance of killing some of America's closest allies in the Persian Gulf. "Look these guys know who bin Laden is. They know he's sponsored murder. He's maimed and killed thousands of Muslims. They're hosting him. They're welcoming him. They are treating him nicely. You know, as I said to my wife when I came home, I said, you know when you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas. These guys are lying down with the biggest dog in the world and we ought to take the shot, the consequences to them, that's too bad," says Scheuer.
Members of President Clinton's national security team say they were less concerned about the cost of hitting bin Laden and his friends and more pre-occupied with the cost of missing. James Steinberg was the Deputy National Security Advisor at the time, "You don't want to look like you can't succeed. That's one thing that we were very conscious of is that to undertake a number of attacks that failed would not only not achieve our purpose but would actually strengthen bin Laden and his group. It would look like we could not get him and that we were ineffective in getting him."
Bush with Clinton
In December 2000 president-elect George Bush meets with Bill Clinton.
In December 2000, when George W. Bush was finally declared the winner of the U.S. presidential election, he sat down for a private meeting with Bill Clinton at the White House. In that meeting, Clinton says he told Bush that al-Qaeda was the biggest threat to the United States and that not catching or killing bin Laden was one of the greatest regrets of his presidency.
Did Clinton wanted bin Laden dead? "Absolutely, absolutely, Bill Clinton had an enormous frustration. Bill Clinton had ordered the al-Qaeda leaders not just bin Laden to be arrested. That didn't work. Then he changed the order and said well, since it's evident that you can't arrest him, you are authorized to kill him and nothing happened. And he really didn't understand why the CIA was so ineffective and couldn't do that," says Clarke.
On January 20th, 2001 George W. Bush was sworn in as President of the United States. Five days later, Bush received a memo from his White House counterterrorism director, Richard Clarke, saying - "We urgently need a Principals-level review of the al-Qaeda network." That urgently required meeting would not take place for almost 9 months. For the new Bush administration al-Qaeda was a low priority.
continued http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/secreth ... line5.html
African bombing
African embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi were bombed by al-Qaeda.
On August 7th, 1998, the U.S. African embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi were almost destroyed by truck bombs. Two hundred and twenty-four people died, including twelve Americans. Over five thousand were injured. The investigation lead straight to Osama bin Laden.
In the Situation Room at the White House, Clinton's national security team decided to hit back with cruise missiles. The CIA had received information that bin Laden would be meeting other al-Qaeda leaders at one of his Afghanistan training camps on August 20th, 1998. The cruise missiles fired from the Arabian Sea travelled over Pakistan and landed in the Afghan training camps but narrowly missed bin Laden. Bill Clinton's crisis management team was disappointed, according to the President's Deputy National Security Advisor, James Steinberg, "We had hoped, and there was some reason to think that bin Laden might be there, and he wasn't at the time of the attack. It is a reminder that this is a very, very difficult thing to do. As people correctly said, there is a limited effectiveness to this particular tactic in dealing with this kind of problem. Cruise missiles are not well designed to deal with this kind of threat."
cruise attack
President Clinton attacks Afghan training camps with cruise missiles.
After the failure of the cruise missile attack, President Clinton reversed his position and authorized the CIA to kidnap Osama bin Laden, but now it would be more difficult. Mike Scheuer, the former chief of the bin Laden Unit explains, "He was no longer the blue-collar guy and the lunch bucket. He was moving at different times of the day, different vehicles. He was staying overnight in places away from Tarnak Farm. So we revived it but the chances of success were marginal after the cruise missile attack." "I could tell you where he was last night, but I couldn't tell you where he was going to be tonight and everyday was like that. So you couldn't get ahead of him. We couldn't get our guys out in front of him. We were always trailing about half a day behind," remembers Gary Schroen, the CIA's lead in Afghanistan.
FURTHER READING
Read Hunting bin Laden a web companion to the PBS documentary.
Watch a video interview with ABC reporter John Miller.
Note: CBC does not endorse and is not responsible for the content of external sites - links will open in new window
In late December 1998, CIA field agents were finally able to get ahead of Osama bin Laden. They received a tip that he would be coming to visit Kandahar. He would be staying overnight here at the governor's mansion. American ships in the Arabian Sea prepared their cruise missiles to strike the governor's mansion. CIA Agent Gary Schroen e-mailed headquarters --"Hit him tonight--we may not get another chance." At the White House, the military doubted the intelligence and estimated that a cruise missile strike would kill or injure over 200 people. In the end, the attack was cancelled. "It struck me as rather insane, frankly. They decided not to attack bin Laden because he was in a building in fairly close proximity to a mosque. And they were afraid that some of the shrapnel was going to hit the mosque and somehow offend the Muslim world, and so they decided not to shoot on that occasion. That's the kind of reason for not shooting that the policy maker, anyway, came up with endlessly," says Schueur.
The missed opportunities to capture or kill Osama bin Laden in the 1990's were a key topic in the investigations of the 9/11 Commission. Vice Chair Lee Hamilton defends the policy makers at the Clinton White House, "There is always the question that arises -'Who else are you going to kill?' If they're with other people, what's the collateral damage going to be? How many women and children are going to die? How many innocent people are going to die? Those are decisions that a political leader has to, they have to wrestle with those."
James Steinberg,
Former Deputy National Security Advisor
The Clinton Administration's last good chance to kill Osama bin Laden was at a falcon hunting camp in southern Afghanistan in 1999. Falcon hunting is wildly popular with the ultra rich throughout the Arab world. The CIA followed bin Laden to the camp and determined that he was going to stay for a few days. But satellite photos also revealed the presence of a military C-130 aircraft from the United Arab Emirates indicating that senior officials from the UAE government were hunting with bin Laden. Once again the White House decided to stand down. They did not want to take the chance of killing some of America's closest allies in the Persian Gulf. "Look these guys know who bin Laden is. They know he's sponsored murder. He's maimed and killed thousands of Muslims. They're hosting him. They're welcoming him. They are treating him nicely. You know, as I said to my wife when I came home, I said, you know when you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas. These guys are lying down with the biggest dog in the world and we ought to take the shot, the consequences to them, that's too bad," says Scheuer.
Members of President Clinton's national security team say they were less concerned about the cost of hitting bin Laden and his friends and more pre-occupied with the cost of missing. James Steinberg was the Deputy National Security Advisor at the time, "You don't want to look like you can't succeed. That's one thing that we were very conscious of is that to undertake a number of attacks that failed would not only not achieve our purpose but would actually strengthen bin Laden and his group. It would look like we could not get him and that we were ineffective in getting him."
Bush with Clinton
In December 2000 president-elect George Bush meets with Bill Clinton.
In December 2000, when George W. Bush was finally declared the winner of the U.S. presidential election, he sat down for a private meeting with Bill Clinton at the White House. In that meeting, Clinton says he told Bush that al-Qaeda was the biggest threat to the United States and that not catching or killing bin Laden was one of the greatest regrets of his presidency.
Did Clinton wanted bin Laden dead? "Absolutely, absolutely, Bill Clinton had an enormous frustration. Bill Clinton had ordered the al-Qaeda leaders not just bin Laden to be arrested. That didn't work. Then he changed the order and said well, since it's evident that you can't arrest him, you are authorized to kill him and nothing happened. And he really didn't understand why the CIA was so ineffective and couldn't do that," says Clarke.
On January 20th, 2001 George W. Bush was sworn in as President of the United States. Five days later, Bush received a memo from his White House counterterrorism director, Richard Clarke, saying - "We urgently need a Principals-level review of the al-Qaeda network." That urgently required meeting would not take place for almost 9 months. For the new Bush administration al-Qaeda was a low priority.
continued http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/secreth ... line5.html
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DeadlyKungFu
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subterFUSE
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nbr0118 wrote:DKF..well put. My personal opinion is that politics is just two ways of looking at problems. I am a conservative, but I think to the average person who is not that familiar with politics, the liberal agenda sounds the best. At the end of the day, however, I do not find that their idealistic claims have any substance to them....that is, these ideas all exist within the context of the absence of something, not the promotion of it (except gay marriage and taxes).
Personally, if someone I work with says I'm doing something wrong, I call them out and ask how they would do it different. Clinton did nothing at all, and Bush is doing it with too many mistakes. Sure you can say Clinton's actions did not directly kill people....but really...how confident can you stand behind this statement (indirectly)?
The truth is that all of us only have a minor glimpse of what the reality is in the world today. We all just state our opinions based on what information we receive. It is funny...all my engineering buds in college were conservative....all my liberal arts buds were liberal. My fellow conservatives and I found liberalism uninspiring and too complacent....my liberal friends found conservatives too ignorant and black and white.
In the end I vote with my wallet and my sense of security.
Good points there.
I also lean far more to the conservative side than liberal.... and falling in line with your analysis, I was a physics major in college.
I also studied economics, and have since completed a masters in business.
I am now considering law school. I take the LSAT on Saturday.
I can't explain exactly when/where I devoloped my political leanings. I think it was during the first Clinton presidential race. I was in 8th or 9th grade. I remember that all of my teachers were liberal, and tried to force their agenda down our throats. I think that my conservatism may have been due in part to a rebelious streak brought on by my teachers' being so liberal, and trying to indoctrinate us.
But I also just think it's common sense. I believe that tax cuts lead to economic improvement. I think that when you let people keep more of their earnings, they spend or invest and that benefits the economy. I think that when you tax people heavily, it restricts the economy. People feel less incentive to spend and invest, and this slows our progress.
My parents were both born dirt-poor, in the south. They worked hard, and have brought themselves up into tremendous success. My dad grew up in a shack in rural South Carolina. Today he looks out his office window onto the North lawn of the White House.
My mom worked 2 jobs to put him through law school. He didn't accomplish that because of government assistance. In fact, he and my Mom qualified for welfare when they were married, but declined out of pure pride. No.... they said they were going to do it on their own, and they did. In this country, such opportunity exists.
So... maybe it's a combination of all those points which is responsible for my views?
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dj superflat
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subterFUSE
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Would you care to elaborate on what you are talking about, just so we can be clear?anti-banausic wrote:I don't really understand how anyone can vote for a party that favors persecution.
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Machinesworking
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subterFUSE wrote:So... maybe it's a combination of all those points which is responsible for my views?
It's funny, to me conservatives are the ones who are idealistic to the point of narcissism. I agree with a lot of what you say in theory, but it doesn't hold water IMO in practice.
people are prone to mimicking their parents, hopefully they become more tolerant, and insightful through careful self examination of their motives and ethics. My parents are great people, and we helped to get you and the rest of the nation stoned, though it's illegal, for no real reason.
I've eaten my share of government cheese, and I don't care what any of you think about that. There are plenty of ways to fail, I'm glad your parents managed not to, but face a simple fact, some people fail. Some people end up working at McDonalds and addicted to crack etc. Do you want them so desperate that they rob your house at gunpoint?
We were armed robbed by junkies when I was a kid. We lived way out in the woods, the gun rack was 20 feet from us. Personally, I believe that sort of thing would happen even more if there wasn't some sort of safety net, period.
I think it's valuable to look outside your own experiences and examine politics as a system that affects society as a whole. Meaning I don;t think it's valuable to align with a 'side'. All my veiws are not left wing, in terms of individual rights, I lean toward libertarian, but I do not believe that corporations have a soul, so to speak, so I do not believe that they should be allowed free reign. The US WTO spokesperson summed it up, stating that child labor laws and other human rights issues were not the concern of the WTO, or our position on free trade.
Corporations have no soul, only a desire for money. This is not wrong, it's only natural, what is wrong is letting them make basically evil decisions without reigning them in every once in a while.
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subterFUSE
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I'm not quite following what you are saying.Machinesworking wrote:subterFUSE wrote:So... maybe it's a combination of all those points which is responsible for my views?
It's funny, to me conservatives are the ones who are idealistic to the point of narcissism. I agree with a lot of what you say in theory, but it doesn't hold water IMO in practice.
people are prone to mimicking their parents, hopefully they become more tolerant, and insightful through careful self examination of their motives and ethics. My parents are great people, and we helped to get you and the rest of the nation stoned, though it's illegal, for no real reason.
I've eaten my share of government cheese, and I don't care what any of you think about that. There are plenty of ways to fail, I'm glad your parents managed not to, but face a simple fact, some people fail. Some people end up working at McDonalds and addicted to crack etc. Do you want them so desperate that they rob your house at gunpoint?
We were armed robbed by junkies when I was a kid. We lived way out in the woods, the gun rack was 20 feet from us. Personally, I believe that sort of thing would happen even more if there wasn't some sort of safety net, period.
I think it's valuable to look outside your own experiences and examine politics as a system that affects society as a whole. Meaning I don;t think it's valuable to align with a 'side'. All my veiws are not left wing, in terms of individual rights, I lean toward libertarian, but I do not believe that corporations have a soul, so to speak, so I do not believe that they should be allowed free reign. The US WTO spokesperson summed it up, stating that child labor laws and other human rights issues were not the concern of the WTO, or our position on free trade.
Corporations have no soul, only a desire for money. This is not wrong, it's only natural, what is wrong is letting them make basically evil decisions without reigning them in every once in a while.
M-Tech D900T laptop, 17" WSXGA+ wide-screen, Intel Pentium 4 3.4 GHz HT (600 series) 2 MB cache, 2048 RAM (Dual Channel DDR2 PC4200 533 MHz), Dual hard drives: 80 gig x 2 = 160 gig SATA 5400 rpm (RAID 0 config)
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DeadlyKungFu
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exactlysubterFUSE wrote:I'm not quite following what you are saying.Machinesworking wrote:subterFUSE wrote:So... maybe it's a combination of all those points which is responsible for my views?
It's funny, to me conservatives are the ones who are idealistic to the point of narcissism. I agree with a lot of what you say in theory, but it doesn't hold water IMO in practice.
people are prone to mimicking their parents, hopefully they become more tolerant, and insightful through careful self examination of their motives and ethics. My parents are great people, and we helped to get you and the rest of the nation stoned, though it's illegal, for no real reason.
I've eaten my share of government cheese, and I don't care what any of you think about that. There are plenty of ways to fail, I'm glad your parents managed not to, but face a simple fact, some people fail. Some people end up working at McDonalds and addicted to crack etc. Do you want them so desperate that they rob your house at gunpoint?
We were armed robbed by junkies when I was a kid. We lived way out in the woods, the gun rack was 20 feet from us. Personally, I believe that sort of thing would happen even more if there wasn't some sort of safety net, period.
I think it's valuable to look outside your own experiences and examine politics as a system that affects society as a whole. Meaning I don;t think it's valuable to align with a 'side'. All my veiws are not left wing, in terms of individual rights, I lean toward libertarian, but I do not believe that corporations have a soul, so to speak, so I do not believe that they should be allowed free reign. The US WTO spokesperson summed it up, stating that child labor laws and other human rights issues were not the concern of the WTO, or our position on free trade.
Corporations have no soul, only a desire for money. This is not wrong, it's only natural, what is wrong is letting them make basically evil decisions without reigning them in every once in a while.
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Machinesworking
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SubterFUSE, I simply addressed a few of your more conservative views, veiws that are not unique to you, and therefore I assumed there was no issue with just replying as if we all knew that conservatives typically believe that welfare is what lazy people abuse, serves no purpose, should be handled by local churches and charity etc. if you need me to
Let me know, but I don't think it's that hard to follow what I wrote?quote you line for line.
I'm sure you can do it, I'm rooting for you!
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subterFUSE
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That part confuses me. Not sure what you're talking about.My parents are great people, and we helped to get you and the rest of the nation stoned, though it's illegal, for no real reason.
M-Tech D900T laptop, 17" WSXGA+ wide-screen, Intel Pentium 4 3.4 GHz HT (600 series) 2 MB cache, 2048 RAM (Dual Channel DDR2 PC4200 533 MHz), Dual hard drives: 80 gig x 2 = 160 gig SATA 5400 rpm (RAID 0 config)
Korg Zero 8 mixer/soundcard/MIDI
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