Pangloss

Er, setting aside cause and effect for a moment, how about we do what we want to do and they do what they want to do? Is that so much to ask?

Boy I wish I knew what was going to solve this. That's an interesting point about the income not being surpassed by interest on debt, but I think really the ultimate problem that we can't seem to address is simply not spending money we don't have. We've come to see the federal budget as a feeding trough and a problem solver for any manner of ills, just because it's so darn BIG. That's pretty screwed up thinking, if you ask me. I think it's reasonable to have emergency/disaster/wartime expenditures and all that jazz, but the fact of the matter is that Iraq and Katrina put together are barely a fly speck on the chrome grill of this economy. What we should have done was cinched our belt and cut a few entitlement programs. Now is not the time for a massive highway bill, for example, or a massive energy bill with huge tax breaks to energy companies at the same time they they're showing record profits. These things just make no sense at all. Of course, part of the reason that we have those things is because we have our collective heads in the sand when it comes to that spending. When people are jumping up and down and screaming and shouting about unemployment and outsourcing in a market where virtually everyone is employed, lawmakers are left with no choice but to treat that as a real issue. And so the budget becomes a great big teat for everyone to suck at. Fewer people crying = lawmakers re-elected.

Oh great, so now we're supposed to tell our kids that Santa Clause is a zombie?? I think we already have a holiday for the undead!

Perfect analogy.

I've heard this as well, and I think it's an excellent point (actually two excellent points -- it's definitely getting lost in the media frenzy). Is it possible that the real story here is that the *majority* of Muslims in the region *aren't* rioting in the streets, and are avoiding it not because they are afraid of the violence (etc), but because they see it as the wrong course of action? I dunno -- nobody is reporting THAT story (as swansont says, people sitting at home ain't news). That's a shame.

You're kinda makin' a lil' assumption there about ol' Santa, aren't you? ;-) I don't really have a problem with a teacher refraining from revealing the fictional nature Santa Clause. They have more important issues to deal with. Besides, kids who are young enough to believe in Santa are too young to understand the larger significance of the scientific method, objective analysis, and logical reasoning. So who cares? (Or am I just completely out of touch with the level these things are taught at now? Please tell me if I am!)

Well we could nit-pick the details there ('disliking Islam'?), but I think Bettina has a valid point. But it's kinda irrelevent in my view. I want my country to stop executing people because it's the correct thing to do (or rather stop doing, if you'll excuse my rushed phrasing). Execution is retribituion, which is not the purpose of justice, and it's also too final given the inherent uncertainty of the justice system. And I don't really care much what other countries choose to do in this area. (shrug)

One of the things that I think is interesting here is that this incident shows how much more of an influence the media is starting to have on the Islamic world. We've been hearing for some time now about rooftops all over the region "bristling with antennas" for satellite TV reception. They watch Al Jazeera or one of the other fledgeling services in huge numbers, and all of those networks are still trying to get their journalistic feet underneath them at a time when journalism isn't exactly on very good footing anyway when it comes to integrity. Mind you, there's always been plenty of news from the Middle East. What's different now is that the populace in the Middle East is providing the news AND consuming it.

But in point of fact it was the *only* basis for your appeal aside from your personal opinion. It was the only thing you offered in evidence as a reason why it shouldn't be allowed. That's called an argument. People have a right here to respond to it on that basis, and you have an obligation to acknowledge and not deny that foundation.

Well okay, if you insist. Can anyone explain to me how... ... is not a slippery slope argument? How it could be anything else? (Note I didn't say it was a fallacy, I just identified the approach. I'm arguing merits on point, not declaring your argument to be illogical.)

Really? Well let's see.... Sure sounds like a slippery slope argument to me.

Nope, and you know it's not. The founding fathers were hardly happy about leaving slavery in place. What they knew, however, is that if they pushed as hard as they would need to push to eradicate it, then the country would cease to exist almost before it even existed, and the whole "grand experiment" would be for naught. So they compromised. And they lived for the rest of their lives knowing that people suffered as a result of that compromise. Even worse, they had to know that there was always a possibility that smarter men might have been able to find SOME way to fix things so that the country would work without slavery. (How'd THAT be for a kick in the ol' wooden teeth, as you lie on your death bed?) Compromise is not a dirty word. People do the best they can to find the solutions that they are able to find. Sometimes that means people get hurt. Imperfect solutions are settled for. It's an ugly world out there. But somehow we get through it and we continue to exist, more or less, by and large, in something like the form of what was intented. The sky doesn't fall, the world doesn't come crashing to an end, and people are still free to talk about the issues, debate the merits, and try to form a better policy for the future. That's what it's all about, guy.

You know, just to give one more obvious example, the founding fathers of my country, generally considered to be a fairly smart group of guys, actually left this country, which was founded on the notion of equal rights under law, with the greatest travesty of freedom ever conceived still in place. If they believed that your slippery slope was the inevitable consequence of every single case of a travesty or injustice, hell I don't think those guys could have even lived with themselves. Their dilemma is something that ideologues can never understand. How could they make THAT compromise, of ALL compromises? What could they possibly have been thinking? And yet... here we are.

Now that you've cleaned up your act, I feel comfortable responding to your more civil tone. In fact I happen to share this position. But it wasn't my intent to fully assess the entire situation with prisoner detainment. You asked me at what point I would agree that we're falling down the slippery slope. My answer was the point at which the other side of the argument has no valid defense. In this case they have a valid defense. You may not like it' date=' but it has logical, defensible validity. Does it make sense to return combatants to the battlefield during an engagement? What constitutes an engagement or conflict? What constitutes due process for foreign nationals? What constitutes "coersive force" as distinguished from "torture"? These are just SOME of the valid questions being asked. Therefore the sky has not fallen, the end of the world is not nigh, and future policy is being shaped. You can throw out all the straw men you like but it's not going to change the substance of this discussion, because both sides have plenty of straw men they could throw out here and, oddly enough, we seem to be able to still talk about these things in freedom. Want an example of a straw man from the other side? How about the fact that income tax was once thought to have one and only one result: Socialism and the end of freedom in America. Yet here we are half a century later, paying our taxes and continuing to exist in a relatively free market and free social communty, in spite of having to give up a very large portion of our income at the point of a gun. And maybe, just maybe, we've learned a better way of doing things in the process. Maybe we've learned that some level of loss of that freedom is worth it for the gain. Maybe we've learned that speaking in absolutes and being inflexible isn't always such a great idea. Maybe we've learned that listening to one another instead of shoving our ideologies in each others faces is a better way.

Oh really? Not a flame in sight? Funny how you left said flame out of your repost then, isn't it? You didn't seem to have any problem locating which phrase was objectionable and removing it, all without any further prodding on my part. I'll be darned. Now you can take your lumps and abide by the rules like anybody else, or you can act like a little cry baby and get all defensive. But if you chose the latter again you'll be doing so in private.

Computer consultant and instructor for database and programming classes. Just finished a masters and starting on a PhD in computer information systems.

No sir, what you did was imply that it would be wrong to tap the conversation of a US service member, and you did so in order to marginalize the counter-argument. That's called "spin", and you'll either admit it or you will not, but when it happens here I will point it out. You're quote: I caught you on it, called you on it, and not only could you not admit to what you said, and not only did you spin it (as you continue to do), but you saw fit to spin what *I* was saying as well, deliberately misconstruing my replies, not once but *twice*. Even after all of that, you could have had the last word, but now you've re-opened it again, so *I'm* going to have the last word. You did it, I caught you on it, and that discussion is over.

I don't think that deciding not to run something because it's insensitive necessarily equates to censorship. I feel free to run down the street yelling obscenities, but that doesn't mean I'm going to do it.

How about drawing the line at a place where there's no just defense for the other side? That doesn't appear to be the case in the examples you mentioned. That's not to say that your opinion is invalid, it's to say that there is a valid position for the other side. Specifically: Guantanamo Bay: Some excesses by individuals (being prosecuted). On the larger scale, a logically debatable (and therefore valid) position that a higher level of coersive treatment may provide better results. (Not a position I share, but hardly a sky-is-falling, end-of-the-world scenario.) "Invading other countries without good reason": I also opposed the war in Iraq (I wanted international agreement for the long-term strategic geopolitical advantages), but the prima facie case was clearly made here as well, in the form of failure to abide by international agreement. "Shooting innocent civilians 8 times on the subway with no warning": Do you mean the incident in Britain after the London bombings? I can't speak to that; not an American issue, and we're talking about American legal matters here. (But maybe I just misunderstood you.) (Actually in a way this stands as a perfect example of what *I'm* talking about, since it happened and yet... the sky didn't fall.) And so your conjecture about "waiting for internment camps" is revealed to be idle speculation, not evidence that we're actually halfway down that slippery slope. Want a dozen more counter-examples of things we didn't do in the past that we seem to be able to cope with now just fine? Or are you able to set ideological insanity aside and acknowledge the fact that just because a compromise is made does not mean that the end of the world is nigh?

Which is a good reason for Americans to be more informed about what's happen, stop accesses and abuses, and pay attention to the world around them. It's NOT a good reason to play Chicken Little. And evidence that we'll go sliding down this slippery slope exists... where? We make compromises that fail to lead to the destruction of society all the time. What's factually, logically different about this one, ASIDE from the fact that you're scared to death of it?

Just as the sky did not fall when we submitted to a draft at various times in our history, the sky will not fall when our phone calls to nations where terrorists are prolific are monitored. Want to know something that's also a far greater danger to society than Al Qaeda will ever be? Misleading overgeneralizations and ideological demagoguery.

It is perhaps not exactly surprising that they weren't early adopters, but apparently our politicians have discovered the Wikipedia, which is now the 19th busiest site on the Internet according to Alexa.com. There were more than 1,000 changes to entries in the Wikipedia for US House and Senate members in the second half of last year. What's amusing about this is that apparently they're not only putting in good stuff about themselves, they're also putting in bad stuff about each other. One congressman got the note "smells like cow dung" added to his bio, and the IP address of the changer turned out to belong to the House of Representatives! At one point in November/December it got so bad that the House was actually banned from editing the Wikipedia! Story (with more amusing details) here: http://www.lowellsun.com/ci_3444567