Re: Unanswered Questions

charles krin wrote:

> On Sat, 01 Nov 2003 13:29:10 -0800, Daiichi
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
> > I don't know why you Germans let Hitler put citizens into a
> > conentration camp without due process.  We don't do it.  The detainees
> > in Guantanamo are non-citizens, prisoners-of-war (or, at least, armed
> > conflict)
> > (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/military/jan-june03/detainees_1-22.html).
>
>
> groups trimmed..
>
> actually, the status of the prisoners at Camp X ray is still under
> review, as most of them do not qualify as Enemy Prisoners of War
> (EPWs)...but were actually Unlawful Combatants at the time that they
> were captured...
>
> Most of them could have been shot after a drumhead court marital under
> the current Laws of War that the US subscribes to...the fact that they
> were not, and that they are being kept at least as well as the
> ICRC/Geneva Accords folks would require if they were EPWs should speak
> to the folks who claim that the US is being a bully..

[groups restored; they were there for a reason]

Karen Winter ('rat'), the moron who posted the fatuous 
comparison between the U.S. and Nazi Germany, has a 
long and sordid history of positing this sort of 
invalid, ideologically driven moral equivalence over in 
talk.politics.animals and other "animal rights"-related 
newsgroups.  In those groups, I have expounded for some 
time a theory about "aras" - "animal rights activists" 
- suffering from a form of mental illness that leads 
them to self-marginalize.  They are people who already 
feel marginalized and alienated, which is not itself 
mental illness.  They then adopt extremist beliefs and 
behavior that *increase* their alienation and 
marginalization; that is mental illness.

This notion, that the U.S. is "literally" a fascist 
state today ("We are living is a fascist state, quite 
literally") is not meant to be an informed criticism. 
Rather, it is INTENDED to stop any meaningful debate 
(thus, one poster's response about invoking Godwin's 
Law to close the thread).  It also is intended to 
identify Karen as an alienated extremist, and to 
INCREASE her alienation.

Karen doesn't believe her own analysis.  She knows full 
well that if it really were true, she would be arrested 
and "disappeared" merely for making such an angry 
criticism of the government.  I'm reminded of an 
outstanding article by Geoffrey Wheatcroft in the March 
1994 Atlantic Monthly, "The Friends of Salman Rushdie", 
 about the difficulties Salman Rushdie brought on 
himself by writing "The Satanic Verses"; unfortunately, 
the article is not available for free on the Atlantic's 
website (it's only $2.95, and it illustrates so many 
truths in the left-right debate, I may have to buy it 
some day).

The gist of the article is that both the left and the 
right disgraced themselves in the aftermath of the 
"fatwa" issued by the ayatollah Khomeini; it was only 
the British right, but the left were disgracefully 
represented throughout the English speaking world.

The British right, long annoyed by Rushdie's leftist 
"multi-cultural" criticism of Great Britain, felt that 
Rushdie now would experience a fate that would 
illustrate to him, albeit briefly, that his disgusting 
proposition of moral equivalence between Great Britain 
and various despotic regimes was false.  The left, both 
in the fashionably snide London literary circles and 
their counterparts in the U.S., also felt that Rushdie 
deserved his fate, because he had "let down The Side": 
 he had criticized a non-western regime.

In analyzing what was wrong with the British right's 
reaction to the fatwa - "Serves him right!" - 
Wheatcroft first analyzed what was wrong, and IS wrong, 
in Rushdie's and other PC multi-culti nags' criticism 
of the West.  He makes mention of Rushdie having 
sarcastically noted, in a British television interview, 
that he was "reliably informed" that Great Britain is a 
democracy.  Wheatcroft also brought up an infamous 
quote by Gandhi who, when asked what he thought of 
British civilization, replied he thought "it would be a 
very good thing."

Wheatcroft went on to discuss, elegantly, how Rushdie 
and Gandhi could not have made their criticisms if 
Great Britain had been the repressive state they 
alleged.  The same holds for Karen Winter and all of 
the filthy moral relativists on the left like her:  if 
the United States were really, "quite literally", a 
fascist state, she would be sitting in a concentration 
camp right this minute, or she would be dead.

Dishonest extremists at either end of the traditional 
spectrum *know* that the criticisms they make are 
substantially false.  They make them not to enlighten 
or to bring about change, but to alienate...themselves.