Transterrestrial Musings

Comments

Speaking of Limbaugh, he has just been charged with felony fraud. I'm just saying...

Posted by Peter Hales at April 29, 2006 07:17 AM

What's your point?

Posted by Rand Simberg at April 29, 2006 07:26 AM

Actually Peter is leaving some stuff out. Rush has cut a deal with the prosecutor. Rush will be charged with doctor shopping, Rush pleads not guilty, however if he keeps going to therapy for eighteen months and stays out of trouble, the charges will be dropped. He also agreed to pay thirty thousand in "investigation costs." This is essentially a face saving arrangement for the prosecutor who very likely does not have enough evidence to take this to a jury. No crime has been admitted to. There will be no trial.

Posted by Mark R. Whittington at April 29, 2006 07:40 AM

"Speaking of Limbaugh, he has just been charged with felony fraud. I'm just saying..."

Saying perhaps you are a strawman screwing retard troll?

Well, the former is you lifestyle choice, the middle a result of your snifffing of airplane glue, the last the culmination of the two former..

Posted by Mike Puckett at April 29, 2006 08:49 AM

Now now. Everyone had to know when they heard the story about Limbaugh that it would be what the trolls would make their hot topic of the weekend. What's amazing is that this posting took almost 12 hours for a loser like Peter Hales to finally bring it up.

Posted by Raoul Ortega at April 29, 2006 12:57 PM

Raoul,
it also took YEARS for the liberal prosecuter to get to this point. Rush will miss $30K the way most of us miss a quarter that rolls into a subway grate. So he wins!

Posted by Steve at April 29, 2006 01:14 PM

I'm against lawbreaking.

As to why it took so long to get to this point--Limbaugh has the best lawyers money can buy and they fought every single action brought by the prosecutors.

But if using drugs and breaking the law makes one a hero, then we need more heroes like that.

Posted by Peter Hales at April 29, 2006 02:14 PM

I'm against lawbreaking.

Who's not? Again, we're waiting for an actual...you know...point.

...if using drugs and breaking the law makes one a hero, then we need more heroes like that.

Gee, here we were, tapping our fingers on our desks, waiting for a point, and all you have to offer is a completely pointless straw man?

Maybe I missed it, but can you point out anywhere in my post, or in this comments section, in which anyone claimed that Rush Limbaugh was a hero at all, let alone one whose heroism was defined by his lawbreaking and drug taking?

I know it will be a challenge, but you need to work on that "logic" thing. Think of it as a "teachable moment." For yourself.

Posted by Rand Simberg at April 29, 2006 02:21 PM

"But if using drugs and breaking the law makes one a hero, then we need more heroes like that."

Gee Pete. If it is possible to give a STD to a strawman, someone needs to fedex your siginificant other a shot of antibiotics stat!

Posted by Mike Puckett at April 29, 2006 03:58 PM

"I'm against lawbreaking.

As to why it took so long to get to this point--Limbaugh has the best lawyers money can buy and they fought every single action brought by the prosecutors.

But if using drugs and breaking the law makes one a hero, then we need more heroes like that."

Heros like this?

"While the press has no problem reporting such stories about Barry (or Dan Quayle for that matter), it has not told the public about the existence of a police tape of Roger Clinton describing his own cocaine trafficking and saying of his brother, "Got to get some for my brother; he's got a nose like a vacuum cleaner.""

Posted by at April 29, 2006 04:28 PM

In regards to the primary point of the posting, I'm curious as to what Greengrass means when he says we'll have to question our beliefs and make hard choices. If he means "question our belief that Muslims can be reasoned with" or "make the hard choice to nuke the Umma now rather than later", well I can see his point. If he's just re-hashing the old "why do they hate us/what are the root causes/what can we change about ourselves so they won't do this again" trope...then he's not saying anything useful.

Posted by Jason Bontrager at April 29, 2006 06:06 PM

jason, wasnt it rummy who said we may be making new enemies faster than we can kill them?

Posted by ujedujik at April 29, 2006 06:50 PM

If he means "question our belief that Muslims can be reasoned with" or "make the hard choice to nuke the Umma now rather than later", well I can see his point. If he's just re-hashing the old "why do they hate us/what are the root causes/what can we change about ourselves so they won't do this again" trope...then he's not saying anything useful.

Jason, I think it reasonable to ask why you are advocating nuking the "Umma" (I goo-gled the term and it's either the ruins of a Sumerian city or the generic Arabic term for the whole of a group be it a country, Islam, the world, etc). I gather you're advocating the nuking of some innocent group of people because of the war on terror.

Second, maybe we can't reason with all Muslims, but I have yet to see evidence that we can't reason with most of them. Destroy the culture of fear (and those who impose it) and you destroy what scares you about Islam (enough that you're willing to nuke innocent people). But let it thrive and there will be hell to pay.

By "reason with people", I don't necessary mean some sort of intellectual discussion. You can reason with children through punishment and reward.

My take is that this isn't about culture. It's about deciding who gets to rule: the people or the bullies. It took a lot of bloodshed for the West to grow out of this.

Posted by Karl Hallowell at April 29, 2006 07:39 PM

What I took away from Flight 93 is not that we are all in danger, but that terrorists could only perpetrate a new form of attack for a few hours before it finds a counter. It might have been a few minutes without the poor connectivity of communications to airplanes. How many can a terrorist kill by poisoning a city water supply? Not too many--the news of the first deaths will travel fast. Terrorism mass destruction scenarios need stories of fast simultaneous execution, tight operational security and difficulty or ineffectiveness in forming antibodies to the new activity or the sheer destructive capacity of the original act.

Posted by Sam Dinkin at April 29, 2006 10:30 PM

ujedujik, if Rumsfeld said that then he was mis-stating the situation IMO. We're not creating new enemies, we're just discovering the ones that we already had but were unaware of.

Posted by Jason Bontrager at April 30, 2006 06:25 AM

Karl,

The Umma(h) in this context refers to the community of believers in Islam. Given that their leaders regularly tell them, and they often seem to agree, that the Great Satan must be destroyed, I have no real problem with taking them at their word and reacting appropriately. Arabs, and Muslims in general, fight war to the knife. No innocents.

As for reasoning with the alleged "vast majority of moderate Muslims", I have yet to see that the moderates even constitute a plurality, let alone a majority. The Palestinians had the opportunity to elect a peaceful government and they chose a terrorist organization instead.

Islam is, by Western standards, pathological. It's inherently incapable of living in peace with other worldviews. Maybe in 500 years Muslims would outgrow their tendency to hate and kill infidels and kuffar, but as they're not limited to catapults and scimitars I don't believe that the West can afford to wait that long.

Islam needs to be smacked down. See Wretchard's Three Conjectures for a better explanation than I can give as to the consequences of failing to do so (I would include the URL, but I keep getting a "your post contains questionable content" error message...just search for "Belmont Club" and "three conjectures"). We're in a war with a totalitarian ideology that incorporates world-conquest as a God-given mandate. This planet ain't big enough for the two of us, and asking how *we* should change who and what we are to accomodate the enemy is pre-emptive surrender. I have no use for such an approach.

Posted by Jason Bontrager at April 30, 2006 06:38 AM

Rand, thanks for the reminder of (and pointer to) Barry's column.

Posted by snellenr at April 30, 2006 07:35 AM

Well ujedujik, It appears we are killing them faster thean they can replace them . Rummy appears to have been wrong.

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/013924.php

Posted by at April 30, 2006 10:18 AM

(blank)- personally, im not worried about al qaeda in iraq. i dont think the sunnis want them there even (nor were foreign fighters ever a large segment of the insurgency). the problem in iraq is the sectarian violence. even conservatives are starting to talk about civil war (though most dismiss it as not really a bad thing). i really do worry a civil war could precipitate a genocide. and as regards our interests, this would be bad because an iraqi would need to have saintly patience/empathy to not be anti-american given everything we have done to them (or indirectly caused them to do to themselves--which would be the case if a shiite-led genocide on the sunnis were to occur, given that our entire iraq policy has been arming this faction against the other) over the past ten or so years. of course, none of this says anything about the number of terrorists (or potential terrorists) in the world.

jason- "The Palestinians had the opportunity to elect a peaceful government and they chose a terrorist organization instead.

Islam is, by Western standards, pathological."

first off, this is true of all religions. about the palestinians, i dont see why everyone is so pessimistic about the election of hamas. it doesnt change anything in regards to the level of extremism in palestine, but it does mean that finally the palestinian government has a plausible claim that they can control internal terrorism (or partially control). also, since it has been elected, hamas has made repeated calls for a cease fire (the latest one i saw had as the only condition that israel stop militarily targetting them). every call for cease fire has been rejected by israel on the grounds that they refuse to negotiate with hamas. for some reason, this is the only place that i have seen that agrees with me: http://bloggingheads.tv/?id=81&cid=276

sorry for the tangent, anyways, jason, how many billions of muslims are there in the world? the us doesnt want a war on islam, for very good reasons. islam isnt the problem, the problems are less simple and various.

"But if using drugs and breaking the law makes one a hero, then we need more heroes like that.
Posted by Peter Hales at April 29, 2006 02:14 PM"

i think rush's arrest could really be a good thing. if all of his numerous followers still support him after this, you'd think to justify it theyd have to stop supporting the drug war. i realize this is probably overly optimistic, but if that were to happen, rush's lawbreaking could definitely be seen as heroic.

Posted by ujedujik at April 30, 2006 11:12 AM

Jason, here are my three main problems with nuking all of Islam. First, nuking a billion innocent people is a reprehensible act of genocide, one unworthy of any civilized people. It also would kill large numbers of non-Islamic people through proximity (Muslims do routinely live in peace with non-Muslims), fallout, and nuclear winter. I also don't buy into Wretchell's key second conjecture, namely that there's a slippery slope to the destruction of a billion or more people, once terrorists get their hands on nuclear weapons.

Second, I don't see how this is going to solve the terrorism threat. After all, the reason we're hypothetically nuking people at random is because we don't know where the enemy is. It seems likely to me that a terrorist organization, especially one as well funded as Al Qaeda, could survive even a total nuclear war with relatively minor casualties. Just move your assets to hidden bunkers away from targets or into innocent countries (say France or Russia). So even mass-killing the Islamic population doesn't guarantee that you kill the crazies with the nukes. It also doesn't help with the non-Islamic crazies out there who also acquire nukes.

Finally, there's the underlying problem, namely you assume we continue to fight ineffectively. My take is that a lot of the problems of the past few years came about because the US didn't have sufficient intelligence on Al Qaeda and IMHO has focused on flashy, expensive convention weapons that aren't remotely appropriate for dealing with the kind of terrorism threats that somehow warrant nuking all of Islam. First, let's actually try to fight terrorism (which incidentally I think we're finally doing) before we contemplate genocidal but futile action.

Posted by Karl Hallowell at April 30, 2006 11:41 AM

(To make a comment which actually bears on Rand's post)

I think that after failed attack on Margaret Thatcher IRA was blowing hot air, and Greengrass fell for it. Suppose IRA did get lucky once, and killed British Prime Minister? So what? It would not be the first time a head of state were assassinated, nor would it be the last. Whoever is second in line for PM position would take charge and continue the fight. It certainly would not have made UK to roll over and surrender to IRA's demands. IRA needed far more than "being lucky once". And this is true of all terrorist organizations -- unless they deal with an utterly spineless adversary.

Posted by Ilya at April 30, 2006 03:16 PM

ujedujik,

While Hamas may have called for a cease fire I'm unaware of any efforts on their part to cease attacking Israelis. Fatah condemned anti-Israeli terrorism on a regular basis, but never acted to stop it. I don't believe Hamas will either as the fundamental plank of their organzation is "Death to Israel".

Second, there are roughly 1.2 billion Muslims in the world. I'd rather not wipe them all out, though I wouldn't shed any tears were they all to die. However genocide isn't (yet) necessary. A few Islamic regimes are well known sponsors of international terror. Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia spring immediately to mind. Wipe *them* out, targetting their governmental and military structures, and the terrorists will find much less in the way of financial, materiel, and political support. And lest you think we'd encourage others to take their place, well people do learn from experience. Were we to take out the major troublemakers pour encourager les autres, les autres would likely be quite encouraged...to leave us alone.

Karl,

Terrorists need local and political backers. Iraq was one such backer for AlQ. Take away the backers and the terrorists become a nuisance that can be rounded up with police measures. The Europeans are apparently doing a fairly good job of rounding up would-be terrorists, despite their public disdain for the war on terror. I don't think genocide is necessary (yet), but I also don't think supinely asking "what have we done to deserve this", as the director was implying we need to do, is an appropriate response.

Bin Laden had one thing right, people will choose a strong horse over a weak one. We need to stop projecting "weak horse" in our internationl affairs, especially with Islam.

Posted by Jason Bontrager at April 30, 2006 06:35 PM

Well done, Rand - it appears you've managed to attract the right-wing Nazi faction to the alt.space community.

Thanks for reaffirming my belief that humanity is far from mature enough to actually leave this planet and start colonizing the final frontier.

Posted by Shubber Ali at April 30, 2006 07:06 PM

Well done, Rand - it appears you've managed to attract the right-wing Nazi faction to the alt.space community.

Is it possible for you to elaborate on that, Shubber? I've no idea what you're talking about. I certainly don't favor wiping out Iranians (I assume that's what got your knickers in a knot), but there are some pretty ugly choices out there, and it's not useful to simply boil them down to "people who I disagree with = "right-wing Nazis." That would Godwinize this post, if it were a Usenet thread.

It is my hope (and this is one of my (many) major disappointments with the administration) that we can do more to liberate them from their oppressive government, soon, and remove the need to disarm them violently.

Thanks for reaffirming my belief that humanity is far from mature enough to actually leave this planet and start colonizing the final frontier.

Yes, I'll probably have something to say about your misanthropic new anti-space-activist blog (note: remove hyphen between "blog" and "spot" in the URL), though I continue to hope that it will at some point have some constructive content.

Posted by Rand Simberg at April 30, 2006 07:17 PM

while its true jason wasnt actually advocating genocide, seriously considering wiping out 1.2 billion people is beyond insane. and peace through total domination does have fascist undertones. and jason, about hamas, they have shown themselves willing to enact ceasefires, they had a lengthy (and successful) one last year, fatah didnt have plausibility when it came to controlling terrorism, they just werent powerful enough.

Posted by ujedujik at April 30, 2006 07:46 PM

...peace through total domination does have fascist undertones...

And of course, the people we're at war with have no interest in anything like that...

[rolling eyes heavenward]

Posted by Rand Simberg at April 30, 2006 07:51 PM

when did i say that? you seem to be criticizing our enemies for that desire, while apologizing for those that would advocate peace through total domination when carried out by us. i wouldnt equate the two, seeing as american tyranny over the world would, i assume, be more less repressive than if our enemies were to be the tyrants (though tyrannies are always repressive). however, there is no realistic threat of our enemies taking over the world, whereas the usa actually has the means to attempt such a thing, so the temptation needs to be even more guarded against. the truth is, i never said our enemies had purer intentions, i was merely criticizing fascist tendencies (whereas you were apologizing for them).

Posted by ujedujik at April 30, 2006 08:29 PM

when did i say that?

When did you say what? By the way, does your computer have a shift key? Perhaps we could do a fundraiser for you to get a new keyboard, so your comments won't appear to be so illiterate.

you seem to be criticizing our enemies for that desire, while apologizing for those that would advocate peace through total domination when carried out by us. i wouldnt equate the two, seeing as american tyranny over the world would, i assume, be more less repressive than if our enemies were to be the tyrants (though tyrannies are always repressive).

Was this paragraph supposed to make sense? If so, could you rewrite it so that a native speaker of English can comprehend it?

i never said our enemies had purer intentions, i was merely criticizing fascist tendencies (whereas you were apologizing for them).

Is there some useful definition of "fascist" for which this sentence is supposed to make sense? Or does "fascist" just mean "things that I disagree with politically"?

Posted by Rand Simberg at April 30, 2006 08:37 PM

When did I say "people we're at war with have no interest in anything like that" (you know, what you were scoffing at)? The fascist impulse i was referring to was the peace through total domination. That is the desire i was speaking of. My point was that I feel it is bad whether Americans feel that way, or our enemies do, whereas you (whom I believe has claimed to be a libertarian) apologize for those that advocate the former, but criticize the latter. And when i was talking about that in my post, it should read "... american tyranny over the world would, i assume, be less repressive" (the "more less" was a typo), though that part was kind of tangential.

i dont see why capitalization is so good, but i dont really care, clear enough for you?

Posted by ujedujik at April 30, 2006 09:17 PM

Ignoring your incoherent definition of "fascism" (which seems to have become a catch-all phrase for "politics I disagree with")...

i dont see why capitalization is so good, but i dont really care, clear enough for you?

Yes, it's clear. It's clear that you are indifferent to whether or not people think you're literate, or take anything you write seriously. Not news, of course.

Well, people accept that indifference, and just consider it as part of the package (that is, most continue to take you not seriously).

Posted by Rand Simberg at April 30, 2006 09:26 PM

how the hell is total domination not fascistic?

Posted by ujedujik at April 30, 2006 09:36 PM

Fascism: "a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition" - Merriam-Webster

The economic repression is of a specific type: Fascism keeps businesses under private ownership but the State makes the ultimate decisions on what is produced.

Posted by Alan K. Henderson at May 1, 2006 12:16 AM

Ignoring the nonsense that we seek "total domination" over anyone (other than those people who are actively attempting to kill us), is North Korea fascist, by your absurd definition? Is Cuba?

Sorry, but words really do mean things (as do capital letters).

Posted by Rand Simberg at May 1, 2006 05:32 AM

ujedujik,

Hamas' cease fires fall are hudnas, temporary truces enacted only until you can attack again. They are not good faith efforts to bring about a permanent peace of mutual tolerance.

As to killing 1.2 billion people, I'd rather it not happen myself, but if the choice is death for the West or death for Islam I'd push the button myself. And considering, and preparing for, worst case scenarios is not insane, it's a necessary precaution in a dangerous world.

BTW, wanting to protect one's own side from the genocidal efforts of an enemy ideology is not even remotely Fascistic (the definition of which has already been provided). I think too many people lose sight of where their loyalties should lie in their efforts to understand "the Other".

Posted by Jason Bontrager at May 1, 2006 06:53 AM

Ever since I was taught about the Holocaust, the first thing I always wondered about mass killings was:

Why, if a large group knows they have no chance to live anyway, do the people not rise up!

Maturity answers the question. It really is hard to accept certain death, and that's only if you know it is coming and have time to respond.

On 9/11, the first crashes occurred without the expectation of certain death, so the passengers didn't rise up. The passengers of flight 93, with actually good communication with the outside world, knew for certain what was coming and had time to respond.

We all live in danger from various things, but rational people weight the risks. Before 9/11, Americans knew death from a chance encounter with a terrorist was possible but not certain. Since then, the equation is that death from a chance encounter with a terrorist is almost certain. With that change, people (as Sam Dinkins pointed out, and Rand previously) will respond appropriately.

I think this is what is meant by "Question our beliefs and make hard choices". We believe rational people are not deadly, and even when in fear, we choose to give in to those beliefs and choose to negotiate or prolonge the situation, rather than bring things to a decisive end. In the future, we will need to understand that even rational people can have deadly motives, and we should choose to respond in kind.

The American population, for the most part, has done this, decided that war is necessary, and when comfronted with people with deadly motives, we have responded accordingly. Nuclear weapons were not necessary. (I think they never will be either... particularly for the US, if you know the history of their purpose).

Posted by Leland at May 1, 2006 08:34 AM

> Nuclear weapons were not necessary. (I think they never will be either... particularly for the US, if you know the history of their purpose).

The "history of their purpose" has nothing to do with necessity.

Posted by Andy Freeman at May 1, 2006 10:33 AM

jesus christ. you really need me to go through every little point? when i say "peace through total domination has fascist undertones" i dont mean they are about to set up a fascist state, i mean its an impulse rooted in fascism, or suggesting of fascism. i would think this would be obvious, but i guess not.

i never said "we" seek total domination, i said jason's comments are indicative of a fascistic impulse, as he advocates a similar thing (and i said an american impulse towards such a thing is realistic, as we have the means to attempt it, and so it needs to be even more carefully guarded against in america). and even considering killing 1.2 billion people is not even a worst case scenario, i cant imagine how that would be useful, or what sort of actions taken against us would justify it (killing 3000 americans is apperantly enough to consider it, which is insane. would 3000 more be enough to advocate it?). it would almost certainly precipitate a world war. and you dont even need to consider the question of "if it is death for islam or death for the west..." because such a situation will not happen. its not remotely realistic, our military is that strong.

about hamas, they might not have shown good faith in regards to lasting peace, but they certainly have in regards to lasting cease fire; i disagree that their prior cease fires have been merely tactical, as you suggest. however, as israel wont even negotiate with them, and are withholding funds from them, i dont think israel has shown good faith even in regards to lasting cease fire.

i think im done arguing here for a while.

Posted by ujedujik at May 1, 2006 01:44 PM

it would almost certainly precipitate a world war.

Perhaps you haven't noticed, but the war against the Jihadis is a world war.

..and you dont even need to consider the question of "if it is death for islam or death for the west..." because such a situation will not happen. its not remotely realistic, our military is that strong.

Militant Islam originally spread at the point of a sword. There's no reason that it can't be unspread the same way. It may take generations, but it can be done.

Posted by Rand Simberg at May 1, 2006 02:03 PM

when i say "peace through total domination has fascist undertones" i dont mean they are about to set up a fascist state, i mean its an impulse rooted in fascism, or suggesting of fascism.

Not "rooted," since it pre-dates fascism by, oh, about 20,000 years (in human history -- millions of years in our species' precursors). "Suggesting of," maybe, if you're prepared to argue therefore that fascism is rooted in nature and is therefore anathema to civilization.

Posted by McGehee at May 2, 2006 07:07 AM

yes, i do believe fascism is part of human nature. erich fromm's "escape from freedom" argues this point persuasively.

Posted by ujedujik at May 3, 2006 03:47 AM

"yes, i do believe fascism is part of human nature. erich fromm's "escape from freedom" argues this point persuasively."

All indications are you don't really know what Fascism truly is and simply label any non-marxists based oppressive society as fascist. This is in spite of a poster listing the verbatium definition within this thread. You are failing your techable moment.

Words mean things.

Posted by Mike Puckett at May 3, 2006 03:19 PM

no, mike puckett, escape from freedom was written in response to the phenomenon of nazi germany. the germans at that time wanted fascism.

Posted by ujedujik at May 4, 2006 06:08 AM

"no, mike puckett, escape from freedom was written in response to the phenomenon of nazi germany. the germans at that time wanted fascism."

That changes nothing, all indications STILL are you don't really know what Fascism truly is and simply label any non-marxists based oppressive society as fascist.

Posted by at May 4, 2006 01:49 PM

The above is mine.

Posted by Mike Puckett at May 4, 2006 01:49 PM

why did you quote my statement about erich fromm then, if you were not disagreeing with it?

and i didnt label any society fascist in this thread.

Posted by ujedujik at May 4, 2006 08:38 PM

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