Hang Your Head in Shame

[erik_kosberg]

"At a certain point, the White House will have to explain why the president’s top counterterrorism officials keep leaving in droves."

[erik_kosberg]

"I meant by that comment that the Constitution doesn’t say that every individual in the United States or every citizen has or is assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn’t say that. It simply says that the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended."

[rmthunter]

Ninth Amendment, in case anyone was in doubt.

[Joubert[$]]

Random thoughts (good posts, everyone!)


1) For a man who claims to be a Christian, I believe GWB's Bible stopped at the Old Testament. If Mr. Rove will allow it, I would be happy to send the President a copy of the New Testament -- one of the holy books of the religion he claims guides his life. Um, Jesus didn't preach torture. If you want to re-fight The Crusades, do it in a video game.

2) Our poor service personnel are so screwed. No matter what we claim is torture versus interrogation, there will be other countries who say, "Screw you, USA. You opened the door and now everything is on the table."

3) We claimed (so wrong, but we claimed it) to have the moral high ground. What is our moral high ground now?

4) Between caving on torture and the rhetoric about the "McCain Doctrine", Senator John has lost the election. Don't even spend the money, Senator. A Hillary/Obama ticket could wipe you out. Hell, a Biden/Joey from the MA legislature ticket could wipe you out. I can't pretend to know what horrors John McCain suffered. I can say that he traded down and gave up so that he had a political shot. He has no more credibility with me. It would have been nice for folks like McCain and John Kerry to lead our nation's politicians into understanding the true horrors of war. Now McCain has gotten his 30 pieces of silver in the form of political capital and Kerry is marginalized. How sad.

Does anyone wonder why most of the world hates America? It's not (just) because we're wasteful and greedy and allow entire countries to go hungry while we SuperSize our movie popcorn. It's because we're bullshit artists, and we actually are lemming-like enough to believe the storyteller's tales most of the time. We have broken faith with the world. We will suffer. We'll suffer from terrorist attacks, from economic warfare and eventually from cultural assimilation. Hey, WASPS -- guess what? There are a heckuva lot more Hindus and Muslims than Methodists who can trace their roots to the Mayflower. (No offense to any Methodists, Mayflower descendants or people who sing along with Lee Greenwood, but can't discuss the Bill of Rights)

[rmthunter]

As I understand it, and perhaps one of the Christians here can correct me if I'm mistaken, the Old Testament is generally considered to be part and parcel of the Christian Bible on the theory that unless there is a specific reference, Christ is taken to have affirmed the laws of Jewish teaching.

Nevertheless, I do agree that too many of the very public Christians seem to have forgotten from whom their creed takes its name and just what his teachings were.

Y'know, I don't think most of the world hates America. We do a lot of good, when we're not saddled with a would-be king with grandiose visions of his own infallibility, and I think most of the world appreciates that. (I don't even think most Democrats hate America, in spite of the gospel according to Saints Rush, Ann and Michelle.) I was surfing the international press after 9/11 and the sympathy and good will were enough to make me cry. (Interestingly enough, the Australian press was the least sympathetic, at least in letters to the editor. The press in the Middle East was generally on our side.)

I don't think the world hates America. I suspect that the world despises George W. Bush.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

rmthunter said

As I understand it, and perhaps one of the Christians here can correct me if I'm mistaken, the Old Testament is generally considered to be part and parcel of the Christian Bible on the theory that unless there is a specific reference, Christ is taken to have affirmed the laws of Jewish teaching.

(paraphrased because I'm not feeling like looking it up right now) When asked which of the Jewish laws was most important, Jesus answered "Love thy God with all thy heart and soul and might, and love thy neighbor as thyself." I've heard it interpreted in my church as he sort of affirmed stuff (the laws having to do with No Gods Before Me and the laws having to do with justice towards one's fellow man) but not all the nitty-gritty laws about eating what with what and all that. It was a detour from specifics and details into a general "be nice to each other" mindset for interpreting what you should do.

Yes, the Old Testament is part of the Christian Bible, but depending on one's flavor of Christianity, it could be there for the history it provides and/or for the examples of faith (Moses, Abraham, etc.) and/or for the words of the prophets (e.g. Amos) which are then matched with the corresponding things that happened in Jesus' life, and other myriad reasons.

From what I've been taught, the OT is very much about codifying behavior down strict lines and meting out punishment. The New Testament is more about grace, redemption, forgiveness.

[frazzledspice]

Well, if cartoonist and Yale graduate Gary Trudeau is to be believed, Bush liked to use a branding iron on pledges when in college...

Could he have developed his taste for torture in those days?

Trudeau, a Yale grad, added: "I did a week on this in the strip back during the 2000 election. The reason I revisited the episode is that it's gained in relevance with the president's reluctance to forego torture in intelligence-gathering."

The branding, which was exposed by the Yale paper, was first covered by The New York Times in a Nov. 8, 1967, article. Trudeau much later told Rolling Stone in an interview that he drew his first editorial cartoon for the Yale Daily News during the branding controversy.

According to that 1967 Times article, "The charge that has caused the most controversy on the Yale campus is that Delta Kappa Epsilon applied a 'hot branding iron' to the small of the back of its 40 new members in the shape of the Greek letter Delta, approximately a half inch wide, appeared with the article." It added that a former president of Delta revealed that "the branding is done with a hot coathanger. But the former president, George Bush, a Yale senior, said that the resulting wound is 'only a cigarette burn.'"

almanak: 11.05

[Joubert[$]]

mjfrombuffalo said

From what I've been taught, the OT is very much about codifying behavior down strict lines and meting out punishment. The New Testament is more about grace, redemption, forgiveness.

I've been taught and believe the same. I guess I have trouble understanding how GWB plans to stand accountable in the afterlife when he seems to have an issue with forgiveness and commanded his troops to hurt others to prevent attacks by opposing forces.

Throw all the military and political issues out the window. I'm trying to understand how Bush can profess to be devout and practice the teachings of Jesus Christ yet allow torture/interrogation. They seem to be highly contradictory, and if he's unwilling to answer that question, maybe he can stop using Christianity and his own beliefs as the basis for other policy action. It sounds to me as though he uses his faith as a shield when convenient.

[erik_kosberg]

I don't think the world hates America. I suspect that the world despises George W. Bush.

True dat. Most of the world is savvy enough to see that there's no contradiction between liking America but hating the policies of the current American administration. But the next administration will be left with one hell of a mess to clean up.

[rmthunter]

But the former president, George Bush, a Yale senior, said that the resulting wound is 'only a cigarette burn.'"

Oh, well -- that makes the whole thing OK, then.

(Speaking as Bob, Boy Anthropologist, of course there are life stage rituals in every culture. Coming of age rituals in particular are likely to involve pain and disfigurement, but Western culture has generally frowned on those and tried to eradicate them.

Speaking as Bob, American in the Here and Now, all I can say is "Haven't you outgrown that sort of crap yet?")

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

I don't disagree with you Emma. When it's contrasted with the New Testament, though, there's a lot more punishment and a harder atonement process than in the New Testament. OT is one thing when standing alone, another when partnered with NT.

Like orange juice and tomato juice - they're both great, but when you compare them to each other, one might seem more sweet or tart or whatever. Just a change in perspective.

[rmthunter]

Actually, I think that Em is largely correct about it being a Christian view of the Old Testament, if only because those Christians who emphasize the laws of the Old Testament tend also to emphasize the severity of the philosophy.

In practice, the Jews I've known (and this is someone who once spoke more Yiddish than most of his Jewish friends) recognize that the laws are not absolute -- for example, diabetics are not only not required to fast on Yom Kippur, but are enjoined not to fast; the Sabbath is a holy day of rest and worship, but you have to get off your butt and take care of your livestock as well.

My sense is that Jews see God as a sometimes stern but generally loving deity who can be reasoned with because He's also fairly pragmatic. This, of course, makes great sense to me, since it fits in pretty much with the Pagan idea of god(ess); the Jews just added the omnis. Somehow the Old Testament Christians seem to have jettisoned the wiggle room -- for everyone else, at least.

However, did not mean to hijack the thread. We were talking about torture, right?

Oops -- simultaneous posting.

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

Ya know what? Never mind. I was under the impression we were talking about different sections of the bible, not the current practices of various religions vis-a-vis the books of Mark or Leviticus. There's no analogy I can make that won't get picked apart anyway, and no way that it won't get turned around that I thing X is better than Y or whatever (which I was bending over backwards NOT to do), so forget it.

Going back to the point Joubert was making, in my version and personal understanding of my variety of Christianity (and not to cast aspersions on anyone else's version of Christianity, or deism, or atheism, or whateverotherism), torture is not acceptable. Neither is the death penalty for that matter, and that is why I have a hard time wrapping my head around people who espouse to be Christians who are all for torture and executions.

[Joubert[$]]

I wasn't trying to compare Christianity and Judaism. I was simply stating that President Bush has constantly referred to his own faith in Jesus Christ as an element in his decision making process. Regardless of what the Old Testament contains, I do not believe that Jesus Christ preached about war, the degree of when interrogation became torture or military strategy.

That said, the Qur'an is really pretty darn good at describing various military campaigns. (I'm joking, kind of, so don't flame me)

[Joubert[$]]

Wow -- MJ and I are a minute apart on that one and on message. It really isn't a Judaism/Christianity debate. We won't have that debate unless Jeb gets elected, finishes off the Muslims GWB started to destroy and begins attacking "other non-Christian evildoers".

Again, joking. I love the Bush family. Who else can you look to for what Pope Alexander II must've been thinking when he somehow came up with the notion that Christian soldiers killing Muslims were forgiven the sin of murder?

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

"For a man who claims to be a Christian, I believe GWB's Bible stopped at the Old Testament" = "Bush does not follow what Jesus preached, maybe he's never read that part of the bible," not "Judaism says torture is fine." At least that's how it read to me, YMMV.

[Joubert[$]]

C'mon, Emma. You must know by know what was intended by the statement. I see how you originally parsed my statement, don't agree with it and clarified. Enough is enough though.

Jesus' teachings do not appear in the Old Testament. George W. Bush claims to be a Christian (let's agree to parse that as someone who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ). Jesus Christ taught His followers forgiveness and how to achieve salvation in His eyes. George W. Bush has waged war on two countries and authorized hurting others to further his war efforts. For the last time, my statement was that I would be happy to send the President a copy of the New Testament that contains the teachings of the very incarnation of God whom George Bush professes to worship. I singled out the New Testament because it starts with the birth of Jesus Christ and then goes on to describe His teachings.

Please, for the last time, I'm begging you to stop implying that me or my words are anti-Semitic. If you want to argue, let's argue about something worthwhile, eh? And with any respect due you, this is the reason I leave for the board for weeks at a time. I come back, and in 24 hours, I'm involved in the online equivalent of describing what the meaning of the word "is" is.

I think you by know what I meant. That you chose to experience it a different way is certainly unfortunate. I hope you will stop writing about it now.

[AuntieEmma[$]]

All right, I'll delete my posts in this sub-thread. I'll just say that it is a shock to me when people attribute Bush's most monstrous character flaws to his being stuck in what they call Old Testament thinking. This is something I see fairly often, in criticisms of Bush, and it always feels like someone hit me in the stomach. You can believe me or not, your choice. You could also make an effort to understand what I have said, or again, not, your choice.

[Joubert[$]]

AuntieEmma said

All right, I'll delete my posts in this sub-thread. I'll just say that it is a shock to me when people attribute Bush's most monstrous character flaws to his being stuck in what they call Old Testament thinking. This is something I see fairly often, in criticisms of Bush, and it always feels like someone hit me in the stomach. You can believe me or not, your choice. You could also make an effort to understand what I have said, or again, not, your choice.

Yet again I'll state what I continue to state. The New Testament is one of the portions of The Bible that Christians use. The President behaves in a way contradictory to its teachings.

I do NOT attribute Bush's character flaws to the Old Testament of The Bible. I consider him hypocritical for not following the teachings of the New Testament that he so often uses in discussing his faith.

I have made an effort to understand what you have said. I do not accept it as relevant to what I said, but absolutely agree with you that some people do feel that way. I think they are incorrect, ill informed and divisive. I don't believe I made such a statement and regret that you feel I did.

Frankly, I took a shot at the President, questioned whether he was truly devoted to the teachings of Jesus Christ as he constantly says and then said I would send a copy of those teachings if Karl Rove would permit. I'm sorry you felt that was a slight to you, your faith or the Old Testament of The Bible, which is a document also considered to be holy in my faith.

Can we go back to making fun of Karl Rove now?