Am I paranoid over the possibility of increasing incidents of anti-Semitic violence?
No.
Am I concerned?
Sure.
The watchword of the Holocaust is “Never again.” Look what happened in Germany: Violence against minorities. People deprived of liberty without due process. The existence of organized anti-Semitic hate groups. Citizens who had committed no crime, rounded up and stuck into relocation camps.
Except…gee…over the last sixty years, those have all happened here as well. And now our commander in chief is suggesting changing the Constitution to formalize a bigotry against gays…a people who, y’know, were just adored by Hitler (who was, by the way, a very religious individual.)
So don’t tell me I’m overreacting, and don’t tell me that such things could never happen here, because such things *have* happened here. The only question is, will they happen again and to what degree.
Now me, I don’t especially care to find out. Don’t get me wrong: It’s not like I’m lying awake at night, listening for the sounds of rocks being thrown through my front windows while people scream “Dirty Jews!” (the incident which–when it happened to him–prompted my paternal grandfather to pack up his family and move the hëll out of pre-WWII Berlin while it was still possible to get out.) But there continues to be a nagging concern in the back of my mind, and frankly, considering a grand thousands-of-years tradition of people trying to kill Jews, I don’t think the concern is exactly misplaced.
PAD
• 
Dave Strom wrote:
“Anyhow, I still remember the Christian class leader saying during one lesson that Pilate really did not want to crucify Jesus, that he was forced to by certain evil agitators.”
That seems to reflect exactly what I read in my Bible.
I understand, on the one hand, why PAD would be nervous. It seems obvious to me, that if the movie is an accurate portrayal of the truth, those people, the four or five or fifty people who were calling for Jesus’ head, THEY were more or less responsible for Christ’s death.
NOT all Jews. The movie isn’t saying all Jews are responsible, it’s saying those Jews, who all died nearly 2000 years ago, are responsible.
Honestly, it kind of reminds me of the complaints about Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin in the Daredevil movie. I heard people complaining that, since the only black man in the movie was a criminal, the movie makers were obviously saying that blacks were criminals.
It was all I could do not to grab people by the throat and start yelling at them, THAT BLACK MAN, THAT ONE CHARACTER is a bad man. It’s not a commentary on the whole race, you stupid, stupid idiot.
PAD,
I agree with your argument except for the comment about Bush being bigoted. No society has ever sanctioned gay marriage – EVER! So Bush is bigoted for trying to maintain the status quo throughout the history of the human race? You’ve lost me here. Perhaps I’m missing the point.
Regards,
Dennis
…
I should clarify — I wasn’t trying to say you’re overreacting, Peter, but that given the stupidity of the average person I see/hear/meet, you’re justified in being concerned that other people might use this movie as a basis for anti-semitism. I think they’re idiots for jumping to those conclusions, but people are idiots more often than not.
wait wait wait, Peter’s jewish? I didn’t know that. Learn something new every day…
I agree with your argument except for the comment about Bush being bigoted. No society has ever sanctioned gay marriage – EVER! So Bush is bigoted for trying to maintain the status quo throughout the history of the human race? You’ve lost me here. Perhaps I’m missing the point.
Ah yes, because maintaining the status quo is *always* the right thing to do. Suppose african-americans had just kept with the status quo fifty years ago? That would’ve been a great idea. Or women in the 1920s, toeing the line and deciding to not seek the right to vote, because, hey, it’s the status quo. Why bother messing with it?
I’m not trying to be an ášš, but arguing that doing something a certain way because that’s the way it’s always been is not the best of reasons.
Does this make Bush bigoted? I don’t think so. Opportunistic? Definitely. There’s a lot of pressure on him right now, what with the economy and Iraq, so I think he’s just using gay marriage to deflect attention away from his own shortcomings as President.
Looking in from outside the fish bowl sometimes has its benefits. George W. has me worried that what he is selling the American people with the Patriot Act and the Dept. of Homeland Security is the first steps in removing the rights and freedoms that forward thinking men gave their lives for for over two centuries. Emperor George is having laws created that inhibit your rights. If he chooses to openly hunt down gays, all he’ll need to say is that being gay is unpatriotic.
Hatred isn’t that hard to understand. It starts with a negative thought, grows to a generalization, and blossums into bigotry. Everyone of us has the potental to hate to such an extent that it might boggle your mind to realize how much you can hate.
I’ve been fighting the bigotry and prejudices hammered into me as a young boy ever since I realized that crap my old man was teaching me was exactly that. There are times when I feel like I’m wollowing in guilt for all the sins that my family has committed. And then I look back at how I was ostrosized as a child, simply for not being English or Scottish, and I think of how I, my French Canadian friend and my American friend were shunned.
People hate because the learn to. It’s much easier than loving. It’s easier to hate the French because they’re French. It’s easy to hate the Americans because they’re overbearing. It’s easy to hate the Germans because they’re arrogant. It’s easy to hate the Muslims because …. Few people look for reasons to love the differences, or to even respect the differences.
If everyone, and I mean every one, actually studied and applied the lessons found in Mathew, chapters 5 to 7, we might actually learn to stop hating.
I think I’ve rambledon too long, now. Who wants the soapbox next?
The status quo? Bad thing to bring up about marriage. Marriage itself has evolved wildly over the years. Marriage has been about power, money, treaties, status and so many other things in the past. Love didn’t even factor into it for a lot of our ancestors. The thing we call marriage today aint the same animal it was many moons ago. Hëll, there are still people alive today who stick to the “old ways”. I’ve a friend from another country who met his wife twice before the wedding. Once ten years ago and again when she came over to this country before the wedding. The families set it up and it was done. They’ve been a happy couple for four years now.
You couldn’t get wed to someone just because you loved them and you wanted to for a lot of our history. In this country’s short history, both religion and race have been wedge issues in marriage. There were states where you couldn’t get hitched if you weren’t color coordinated with each other skin wise. And mixing religions? That could have got you hurt in lots of parts of the world and in this country’s not too distant past.
The “definition” of marriage has changed over the years. It’s been expanded to include new things on both legal and social levels as well as excluding things it once had. Bringing up “the status quo” as a reason against gay marriage doesn’t really work that well.
Josh,
I think we agree. I was merely objecting to the term “bigot” as do you. The rest of it is ugly politics as you state.
Regards,
Dennis
I almost never disagree with PAD (snort, laugh, sorry) but yes, people possibly including PAD are in fact overreacting to the Passion movie. I live in a conservative (not to say redneck) rural county in North Carolina where church groups have insidiously been buying up large blocks of tickets so their groups can go see the movie en masse. Not one of the people I’ve talked to who’ve seen it has gotten the impression at all that the movie blames Jews for the Crucifixion. This would have been a non-issue without pressure groups crying bloody murder in advance of the movie’s release. Six weeks ago CNN reported, “‘This film has all the makings of a [box-office] bomb,’ entertainment publicist Michael Levine told The Washington Times.” Now that the film is making box-office records, I hope Mel Gibson sends the Anti-Defamation League a “thank you” note. It’s the only polite thing to do.
Beyond that, I think PAD is overreacting to a lot of things in his message. Yes, a lot of those things have happened over the last sixty years. I assume he went back 60 years to get in the internment of Asian Americans during World War II. I agree that was reprehensible, and in more considered time (i.e. when not, what are the words– “paranoid” and “overreacting”?) the country has realized that and apologized for it. Probably we’ll end up doing the same for whatever unjustified detentions may have been initiated on 9/12/2001.
But think about what else has happened in this country in the last 60 years. We now have racial equality, at least formally within the law, and fact is catching up to theory. The Civil Rights Act has been on the books forty years, accompanied by dozens of court orders enforcing the neglected portions of our Constitution. There have been problems, even atrocities, in our history (slavery, mistreatment of American Indians), but the trend has been for those problems to have gotten better, not worse.
As for the attempts by the POTUS to “formalize a bigotry against gays,” the comment above about a conservative Supreme Court issuing a broad (arguably too broad) privacy opinion striking down the Texas sodomy statute is well taken. There are no pogroms in America. The proposed amendment would define one legal status in a socially conservative fashion. Comparing ANY of this to Crystal Night is unforgivable hyperbole. The Holocaust is the worst thing people have ever done to each other. I’m sorry Mitch has just noticed people are “hate-filled slime”; that’s been true since the monkeys climbed out of the trees, but the Holocaust is evil on a scale rarely seen even among our kind of slime. All due respects PAD, but it’s not going to happen here. Political culture is a real thing. The Constitution is real. And this Republic looks nothing like a fascist police state. Our laws and our institutions are what protect us from the hate-filled slime, and I say that even after the USA PATRIOT Act.
I respect your right to think that, and whilst I admit my knowledge of the Patriot Act isn’t as deep as it should be, I stand by every word as increasingly true and based on considerable evidence.
Oh yeah? Like what?
and the Patriot Act could shut this site down in a heartbeat, without warning or explanation.
No it couldn’t. OK folks, be honest, raise your hands if you’ve actually read the PATRIOT Act… What, just me then? OK. The PATRIOT Act, currently running a close third behind the marriage amendment and Passion of the Christ as the source of paranoia, does basically nothing substantive apart from giving the President authority to seize assets of belligerent powers, and requiring ID when opening bank accounts. That’s pretty much it. The search warrants and wiretaps are still under judicial control because the require a court order to issue, but now they can move with the target rather than have to be geographically contained. The detentions of suspect aliens are the most disturbing aspect, but still are under court supervision through habeas corpus writs.
This is still the freest country in the world, and the “sky is falling” paranoia is getting old.
3 by 3
Evidently you have no reading comprehension…since I quote 2 sources! (National Consultative Commission on Human Rights – the official police report!)…
But hey, rather than use facts, you resort to ad hominim….mature.
Way to make your point.
Jerry
PAD,
A bigot is a person who refuses to tolerate people whose opinions differ from his own.
I don’t tolerate Pedofiles…guess that makes me a bigot? So when did you start tolerating pedofiles, or are you a bigot as well?
My point is, it’s not bigotry to not tolerate lifestyle choices you fine wrong. We can argue whether or not GW (or anyone else who is anti-gay) is valid in their thinking, but to call someone a bigot for having made a moral choice is unfair. Necrophyliacs can make an arguement that their lifestyle is valid, but you aren’t a bigot if you don’t support them. And no, before someone says this, I’m not grouping homosexuality with pedophilia or necrophylia. The point is, if you honestly believe homosexuality is an immoral and incorrect lifestyle choice, believing so does not make you a bigot.
Jerry
I think he’s just using gay marriage to deflect attention away from his own shortcomings as President.
Actually, I think he’s being incredibly honest. It’s not like the change is going to happen before the election, so why would he come out with it now? It sounds to me, on an issue that’s very current and relevent, he’s making his position clear, rather than hiding it, and revealing it after the election.
If anything, I’m upset with Kerry, so seems to be agree at the timing. He seems to not want to take a position on this, and make it know. God forbid people could have this information when it came time to vote.
Jerry
The point is, if you honestly believe homosexuality is an immoral and incorrect lifestyle choice, believing so does not make you a bigot.
But, I think, attempting to codify that belief into law just MIGHT make you a bigot (because you are, by definition, forcing your opinion on others who disagree).
Believing in something and forcing others to behave in accordance with that belief are two completely different things. The first is very easy to justify; the latter takes much more to justify. Let’s not conflate the two.
I don’t believe that it’s the right thing to do to make marriage a more fluid institution.
Already it’s easy to get a quickie marriage and a fire-and-forget divorce.
You re-define marriage to any two not-already-blood-related people have a degree of intimacy, or merely claiming a degree of intimacy you’ll have more and more people declaring that the boundaries set thus far to “marriage” are arbitrary.
Leftists and apathetic people are saying that the current boundaries and regulations surrounding “who can get” married are “arbitrary” and “biogted”. When we include one or two more possible sets of people into the distinction of “who can get” married we still have more sets remaing who are excluded who want to be included.
CJA
The thing we call marriage today aint the same animal it was many moons ago. Hëll, there are still people alive today who stick to the “old ways”. I’ve a friend from another country who met his wife twice before the wedding. Once ten years ago and again when she came over to this country before the wedding. The families set it up and it was done. They’ve been a happy couple for four years now.
Speaking of the sancity of marriage, I sometimes wonder if the old ways were all that bad…as the gay marriage issue brings out, they weren’t that bad….
You re-define marriage to any two not-already-blood-related people have a degree of intimacy, or merely claiming a degree of intimacy you’ll have more and more people declaring that the boundaries set thus far to “marriage” are arbitrary.
Yes? And?
Leftists and apathetic people are saying that the current boundaries and regulations surrounding “who can get” married are “arbitrary” and “biogted”. When we include one or two more possible sets of people into the distinction of “who can get” married we still have more sets remaing who are excluded who want to be included.
Yes? And?
Jerry wrote:
And no, before someone says this, I’m not grouping homosexuality with pedophilia or necrophylia.
You realize that saying this after you just did it doesn’t mean that you didn’t do it, right? You ARE grouping them, even if you aren’t explicitly equating them.
Jerry also wrote:
The point is, if you honestly believe homosexuality is an immoral and incorrect lifestyle choice, believing so does not make you a bigot.
So if you honestly believe blacks are inferior to whites, does that make you a bigot? Because I honestly believe it does. In both cases.
Rob
To the above poster who asked if anyone has “read” the Patriot Act. I am in insurance, and I was given a training session on how the Patriot Act relates to insurance and financial institutions. Now, no one is saying that fighting terrorism is easy, or that we should not do everything we can to make sure we are not victims again. But while I went through the training all I could think was–how different is this stuff from Communist Russia? Let me explain. The financial industry (banks and real estate folks especially) must report anything they find suspicious in financial dealings. However, the person who is being reported on cannot know they are being “flagged.” And the reporter gets to be anonymous. I don’t want to be a “paranoid Gentile”, but c’mon. Reporting on your fellow man? You cannot know who is accusing you? And how much paranoia does it take for one “foreigner” who makes some faux paus, or doesn’t understand a transaction completely to end up on some list? And if you don’t report on someone–you can get in trouble. Is anyone else troubled by this stuff? You may think it “can’t happen to me”, but I am not comfortable with it.
Blue Spider wrote:
I don’t believe that it’s the right thing to do to make marriage a more fluid institution.
Already it’s easy to get a quickie marriage and a fire-and-forget divorce.
For you and me, maybe. We’re straight. (At least, I’m assuming you are from earlier comments.)
You re-define marriage to any two not-already-blood-related people have a degree of intimacy, or merely claiming a degree of intimacy you’ll have more and more people declaring that the boundaries set thus far to “marriage” are arbitrary.
So right now marriage is defined as “two not-already-blood-related people of the opposite sex who have a degree of intimacy, or merely claiming a degree of intimacy?” I don’t see how excluding gay couples improves this pretty bleak assessment of marriage.
Leftists and apathetic people are saying that the current boundaries and regulations surrounding “who can get” married are “arbitrary” and “biogted”. When we include one or two more possible sets of people into the distinction of “who can get” married we still have more sets remaing who are excluded who want to be included.
Extrapolating this argument backward to what (I hope) you will recognize as its absurd conclusion, are you suggesting the government should never have recognized African-Americans’ civil rights, because now gays want them too? Becuase something got THIS ball rolling, and the ball before that, and the ball before that. Maybe it was giving women the right to vote?
And I’m sure there are plenty of apathetic people who’d prefer marriage to stay just the way it is…
Rob
Hey Blue Spider,
Two-not-already-blood-related-people….
Another example of the change in marriage and also how those defining it now don’t know it all that well. Blood relations, strange as it seems, can get hitched in this country in this day and age. They just want some distance in the line. But even that’s new. Marriage between first cousins isn’t that uncommon around the world and was something that was done in this country’s short history. Would you insist that, by law, we don’t recognize the marriage of two people from another country who move here because they’re first cousins and we don’t allow it here anymore? Just wondering.
And I’m not apathetic. Nor are many of my friends who don’t have a prob with gay marriage. I’m just secure in who I am and in my beliefs. I’ve got a few gay couple friends and at no time have their relationships ever made me feel that mine with my girl was threatend, under attack, devalued or in some way less then it could be. They have their happy household and I have mine.
And, Tang, I kinda like some of the old ways too. But I still think I would like to actually know the person I’m spending the rest of my life with.
TOBY:
I told you “gerbils, not monkeys.”
See what happens?
Gerbils.
Actually, you can have really close blood ties in some states and still be wed. I think it’s the law in West Virginia that at least one male in the family get hitched to his sister.
Hey, I’m from Virginia. I have to get at least one WVA dig in before the end of the night.
“Hail Eris!” indeed, Jay. I’ve got my copy of the Principia Discordia — the only religious tome published by Steve Jackson Games — and I’m a’headin’ for a hot dog.
Now that I’ve confused everyone…
Many, many posts above, PAD mentioned “You know…that would be a heck of a novel. A novel in which the disciples were so determined to create a religion, but interest was flagging in their guy. So they decided he needed to be martyred and set the wheels in motion secretly…” This has been done, in several forms, before. Many of the Jesus conspiracy theories suggest he was mortal, was secreted away, and had children with Mary Madgalene. (This theory pops up everywhere from the divinity of the royal houses of Europe to the comic book Preacher to the novel The DaVinci Code.) This could mean he wasn’t divine, or his divinity is passed down. The novel ANOTHER ROADISDE ATTRACTION (which I haven’t read in years, so feel free to correct any errors) has a traveling circus group find the corpse of Jesus, which would mean no ascension if there’s a body. What do I think? It’s time for, drumroll please…
KING ARTHUR AND JESUS CHRIST
There was a historical Arthur. (Again, this is based on classes I took over 10 years ago; expect fuzziness.) Before England was called the same, there was someone who built a sturdy fort that kept out some invaders; it’s believed his name was Arthur, because shortly after this fort was made there were lots of people being named Arthur. Over time, the fort evolved into a castle. There was a stone, which became an anvil, which was transformed into a Holy Grail. There was a great battle, then a betrayal, then a clash with a relative. French romances were all the rage among English nobility, so soon courtly love became entwined with the legend, and a love triangle, and Christian beliefs got mixed in, and on, and on — and all from someone who made a good fort.
Now, what if around 2000 years ago, there was a Jew with a different message? Instead of urging violence and the imminent Second Coming, he told people to love one another? Don’t fight — do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Don’t judge — forgive others instead. And what if people talked, and the stories about him grew. “He talked to a great crowd!” “He helped many!” And what if those followers wanted to keep spreading the (dare I say it? yes) Word about this kind man. And what if the stories grew: “He didn’t just help people — he healed them!” “He didn’t just heal them — he brought them from the dead!” And what if his reputation grew, from being a good man, to a great man, to a holy man, to a prophet of God, to the Son of God, to 1/3 of God? He didn’t defeat the Romans — but what if that was the plan? What if he transcended death instead of succumbing to it? And what if the followers decided to organize their thoughts, creating a book combining the old ways and the beliefs about this new man? (Not all writings would make it in, of course — the organization would have to decide which were divinely written and which weren’t.) And what if that organization grew, divided, argued, fought wars, killed unbelievers and differing sects, finally believing it superceded all else, even that which existed before?
Could all this have happened? Could the most powerful religion today have evolved from a man who told people to love one another?
I’m an agnostic, largely because my answer to this is yes.
Bill Mulligan: “..I’d be nervous about the hostility they will face from some Muslim students and a left wing faculty that often equates Israel with Nazi Germany..”
Sorry Bill, but the Passion is being propelled into the public consciousness by the right wing, not the left. You will not find nazis voting or supporting leftwing democrats or liberals. The leftwing was, alongside Jews, a target of Nazi fascim, as well as in Italy whose title for it was ‘corporatism’, which is what we have here in the U.S under Bush/Cheney.
So please don’t tell the jewish community they need to be afraid of liberals and left wingers, cause you’d be 100% wrong.
MYOB’
.
So, I do a quick page refresh to see if I missed any of the discussion, and wonder why there was suddenly about three feet of text added in the twenty minutes since I started perusing the messages.
Jesus…if that really is Bendis, I kind of expected more pauses, ellipsis, and “y’know”s for that “authentic” dialogue sound. Although I suppose the repetition does ring true as Bendis work.
I’m also a little disappointed, but not really surprised, that PAD has finally resorted to throwing around the liberal epithet of bigotry. That ought to put a chill on any discussion or debate from anyone who disagrees with PAD’s position on the subject.
Sometimes “bigotry” is the right word, though. There’s a difference between disapproving of what a person does (which is what Fundamentalists, among others, claim to do) and hating the person.
The pedophile example was interesting; are you a bigot for hating a pedophile? Perhaps. After all, a pedophile is not a person who has sex with children, but one who is sexually attracted to children. Hating a person who has sex with children is… within the bounds of acceptablity (if you can really justify hatred to begin with), but hating a person who is attracted to them, recognizes that his attraction is wrong — an argument can be made that it isn’t, but we’ll just go with the assumption that it is inherently wrong to copulate with a minor — and seeks to overcome it because of that sexual attraction; that’s not exactly right. I don’t know if I’d call it bigotry, but hating someone for their weaknesses rather than their transgressions is decidedly un-Christian.
As for the Marriage Amendment; yes, it’s bigoted in nature. It’s a proposed law that uses arbitrary and irrelevant stereotypes to justify preventing a certain group of people from having certain rights — hospital visitation, inheritance, etc. — based solely on the thing that makes them different. It’s as bigoted a law as the original law that outlawed marijuana, which was justified by the man who brought it before Congress because “Reefer makes darkies think they’re as good as white men,” among other things.
http://blogs.salon.com/0002762/stories/2003/12/22/whyIsMarijuanaIllegal.html
Oh, and finally to the people who think they’re being cute about pointing out that if Christ hadn’t died, Christian’s wouldn’t have a religion, what alternative universe do you have access to?
Well, Peter David is a Jewish writer. He has access to all the worlds his imagination will take him to, and none of them necessarily require by the doctrine of his faith that Jesus Christ be regarded seriously as either the Son of God or the Savior of Mankind.
What a sophist argument! The foundation of Christianity is grounded in the teachings of Christ, not just his death. It’s like saying that the civil rights movement wouldn’t have succeeded if Martin Luther King hadn’t died. Had either lived longer than they did doesn’t mean that their teachings wouldn’t be just as popular today or just as valid.
Actually, Jeeze ([silliness]as they called him back then; it’s true![/silliness]) wasn’t especially popular back then. His teachings didn’t really have much mainstream effect until some time after his death, and this was mostly herded along by the people who were talking about his death, and more prevalently, his ressurection. Coming back to life in full view of the public is a dámņ sight more impressive than switching peoples’ drinks and having more fish than people think you do.
Hate to break it to you, but Christianity is based not on the teachings of Christ but on the divinity of Christ. His philosophical leanings are really secondary to the whole Son of God thing. Think about it; Christians have a pretty easy time in this modern world culture of ignoring basic precepts of Jesus’s teachings, such as love your brother and such, but if a person suggests that everything Jesus did could have been faked, they get offended. The important part of Jesus’s life was the end of it.
There’s no way that was Brian Bendis. It’s just some pathetic creep who doesn’t even have the stones to sign his name to his desperate ploy for attention.
Anyone have a mop? Some dumb animal šhìŧ on the floor.
Rob
I am straight, white, and not Jewish. I work in a factory. Every week, and I tell you again—EVERY WEEK— I hear racist, misogynistic, and homo-phobic comments. I am surrounded by bigots. It is to laugh (except it is so dámņëd depressing) to hear how they twist their logic and words to try to justify their opinions to themselves and others. The twisting , the interweaving, the paralogia…
A bigot will never admit to being a bigot.
I find myself getting angrier with each additional comment. I can’t understand how people can be this way. What part of “Do unto others…” is so hard to understand? What part of “Love thy neighbor…” is so hard to follow?
I am getting angry just writing about this.
Maybe someday I’ll get a bumper sticker that says:
So Many Bigots,
So Few Bullets.
Ðámņ! That Bendis sure can write some amazing stuff. I’ve never read any of that kind of stuff before. Maybe I should pick up a couple of his comics.
From various posters:
Actually, that entire statement is untrue, especially the section about the Patriot Act. But, I’m not going to change your mind on that, and it’s easier to just make statements than back them up.
Where is it untrue? Are’t there Arabs being held in GTMO with out being charged in any crime? Don’t they have the power to monitor and take down websites that they feel to be in anyway threatening to national security? The patriot act is a little ambiguous on that one, and as a non-citizen one who lives in fear of the patriot act…>>
That’s a bit misleading, isn’t it? They’re being held as “prisoners of war”, which while not a crime is a legitmate reason to lock someone up. I think the protests are that they SHOULD be charged as criminals.
I don’t know if this has been pointed out yet, but the Guantanamo Bay captives are actually being held as “enemy combatants”, not “prisoners of war.”
What does that mean? Go here:
http://www.cfr.org/publication.php?id=5312
Or read this excerpt:
Enemy Combatant
An “enemy combatant” is an individual who, under the laws and customs of war, may be detained for the duration of an armed conflict. In the current conflict with al Qaida and the Taliban, the term includes a member, agent, or associate of al Qaida or the Taliban. In applying this definition, the United States government has acted consistently with the observation of the Supreme Court of the United States in Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1, 37-38 (1942): “Citizens who associate themselves with the military arm of the enemy government, and with its aid, guidance and direction enter this country bent on hostile acts are enemy belligerents within the meaning of the Hague Convention and the law of war.”
“Enemy combatant” is a general category that subsumes two sub-categories: lawful and unlawful combatants. See Quirin, 317 U.S. at 37-38. Lawful combatants receive prisoner of war (POW) status and the protections of the Third Geneva Convention. Unlawful combatants do not receive POW status and do not receive the full protections of the Third Geneva Convention. (The treatment accorded to unlawful combatants is discussed below).
The President has determined that al Qaida members are unlawful combatants because (among other reasons) they are members of a non-state actor terrorist group that does not receive the protections of the Third Geneva Convention. He additionally determined that the Taliban detainees are unlawful combatants because they do not satisfy the criteria for POW status set out in Article 4 of the Third Geneva Convention. Although the President’s determination on this issue is final, courts have concurred with his determination.
Authority to Detain
The President has unquestioned authority to detain enemy combatants, including those who are U.S. citizens, during wartime. See, e.g., Quirin, 317 U.S. at 31, 37 (1942); Colepaugh v. Looney, 235 F. 2d 429, 432 (10th Cir. 1956); In re Territo, 156 F. 2d 142, 145 (9th Cir. 1946). The Fourth Circuit recently reaffirmed this proposition. See Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, 296 F.3d 278, 281, 283 (4th Cir. 2002). The authority to detain enemy combatants flows primarily from Article II of the Constitution. In the current conflict, the President’s authority is bolstered by Congress’s Joint Resolution of September 18, 2001, which authorized “the President . . . to use all necessary and appropriate force” against al Qaida and against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines” committed or aided in the September 11 attacks.” Pub. L. No. 107-40,
I wonder if it’s too late to change PAD’s mind on that whole “throwing people off the site” debate from a few weeks ago? And I thought my joking dig at my WVA cousins (none of whom I’m married to) would be the poor taste post of the morning.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot to give props to Bill Mulligan. Yours was a very good post, even though it suffered a bit from the obvious handicap of not having the term “***********” in it five thousand times.
-Dave O’Connell
Isn’t the Bendis post above (and if you don’t know which one I’m referring to, seek professional help) exactly the sort of thing that made PAD consider banning certain folks from this site? It’s a few actual sentences, with a truly massive amount of rasict and sexist words — the same two, over and over — repeated numerous times in between. That is barely speech, more an offensive barrage than argument, the sort of post that would not be missed, and the sort of posting that should get Bendis booted from here. No one else, on either side of the discussion, resorted to anything like that.
Mr. David Bjorlin wrote:
“I’m sorry Mitch has just noticed people are “hate-filled slime”
Actually, I’ve known for quite a while. It’s just that these days it’s become so prevelant that I’ve decided to seclude myself lest I snap. A little background: I work with people that throw the word ‘ņìggër’ around like we’re at a klan rally. One even tries to justify it by saying that one of his best friends is black. Doesn’t mean that he’s not a piece-of-šhìŧ biggot. After all his friend is a “black friend” and we don’t always have alot of say as far as who our friends are. Sometimes we just can’t help but like someone.
Jerry wrote:
“I don’t tolerate Pedofiles…guess that makes me a bigot? So when did you start tolerating pedofiles, or are you a bigot as well?”
Your choice of groups used to illustrate your point ultimately defeated your point. Pedofiles are predators who choose to abuse children physically and manipulate them (mostly through coersion) emotionally. Two gays getting married are not hurting anyone but (potentially) themselves.
On the notion of tolerance…
I will NOT tolerate anyone. I find it demeaning since ‘tolerate’ is synonymous with ‘to put up with.’ Instead I prefer to accept people for what they are and decide whether or not I want them as a part of my life. To ‘tolerate’ someone is to place them lower than yourself. Which I believe is wrong. Everyone has something to offer. A perspective that hasn’t been previously considered. I, for one, would prefer to veiw a problem with many perspectives and have many options as opposed to a single perspective and have limited options.
End of speach (untill the next one)
Salutations,
Mitch
I would like to make two comments after I read a lot of more postings:
No, Bush is not Hitler. I agree with that. I also doubt it very much that at least in the USA and Western Europe, something similar as the Holocaust could happen again – not because human nature changed but because people nowadays are much more vigilant, also thanks to the flow of news and globalization that exists today.
That doesn`t mean that what is happening in the name of “War on Terror” is right. Especially because of what I wrote before, because it is much more difficult to keep unlawful actions a secret Bush had to find another way: to clothe it into something people would accept so that they accept it as a necessary evil. And as soon as they accept one measure, Bush can try to push further, to introduce the next step. This is not Hitler`s Germany but there is a miz of dangerous parallels here with even more sophistication.
“War against terror” is an important goal but if you act as the world police and tell others what is acceptable behaviour, you better set a very good example. Unfortunately freedoms are cut down and laws twisted to make unjust actions like locking up people without being charged, sometimes even indefinitely, to look right. The most obvious example is Guantanamo Bay. But it happens also in the USA and, yes, also in Iraq where citizens are arrested and locked up, sometimes they find themselves in prison and even the families aren`t told.
Someone said the inmates in Guantanamo Bay are “prisoners of war”. No, Bush was always careful not to describe them as that because if they were, they would have rights. Locking up a prisoner of war like this would be a war crime. Therefore they are described as “unlawful combatants”. Only, it seems to me, people accused as that also automatically lose their human rights, which is very serious indeed. One of my US friends keeps telling me that I should stop defending these people because “they deserve it”. Pardon!? Even a convicted serial killer has more right than these people who didn`t even have a trial after two years and haven`t seen their families and got legal help! After a long struggle, five of the nine British inmates are supposed to be released “soon” (whenever that is). Some of their backgrounds has been shown on British TV and I was left with serious doubts that these men had done anything at all that links them to terrorism.
I am wondering now, what next? Should Iraq get a government the USA is not happy with, maybe consisting of extremists, what then? Unfortunately it is much easier to destroy than to rebuild, especially when dealing with a very different culture and belief system. Afghanistan is far from stable and especially the situation of women there is still appalling. I am afraid what could become of Iraq after the USA leaves.
The other one is about the “freedom of speech” issue. As I said before, I disagree with PAD here that ALL kinds of free speech have to be permitted because to do so is potentially dangerous. How anyone can defend the freedom of speech of people who obviously fall unter the cathegory of “inciting to violence and racial hatred” is beyond me.
It’s just a stupid movie so I dont understand the fuss. We’ve had these type of movies over the years and no one has griped about em. All of a sudden jews are worried??? What for?? Those that have read the bible already know how Jesus died. And the Jews did kill him. Nothing new there. I just don’t understand the hype over this. Its just a movie.
Ay, caramba. And then I found out why it took so long to scroll down here…
Peter: Your novel idea hasn’t exactly been taken. The Last temptation of Christ and Morley Callaghan’s A Time for Judas both play with the idea of Judas as the most loyal disciple because he knows Christ must be martyred for the religion to grow. But the conspiracy thing would be neat. You could do it like an episode of the West Wing — people running around worried about the latest polls, etc. etc.
Cheers, Jon
A lot of people refute that there are any similarities in regards to the actions and words of many politicians today to those in Nazi Germany based solely on the fact that no one in power has attempted to exterminate the Jewish people in the US. I think sometimes people forget that while the Holocaust was clearly the Nazi’s #1 most horrible act, it was not the only action that they took nor was it their only motivation. I think that sometimes people disregard other similiarities because our government hasn’t done that so everything else is okay.
The Nazis also invaded other countries and occupied them for their own good of course.
They controlled the media and censored those that did not agree with them. (Notice the sudden increase in censorship since the superbowl.)
Those who still spoke out against the regime were labelled traitors and terrorists by the Nazi Party.(Notice the trend of calling people anti-american or turning the terms “Liberal” and “Protester” into labels of anti-patriotism.)
Nazi Germany swelled with Nationalism instead of Patriotism.(Patriotism is loving your country despite its flaws and attempting to change or question those flaws from within the system by improving it. Nationalism is believing that your Country and/or Leaders can do no wrong and are right no matter what they do.)
They passed laws enabling them to detain certain citizens without question and label them as second-class citizens with little or no rights that the true loyal citizens deserved. Like Jews, Gays, Gypsies, and Polish peoples.
Having said all that I think that saying that certain politicians are Nazis is way too strong and a little paranoid. But ignoring the silimilarities of the last two years worth of events in this country I also believe to be naive. I do not believe that we are heading towards another Holocaust, but that doesn’t make me worry any less about where our country’s current mindset is taking us. The path is too uncomfortably familiar and appears to be heading towards only the acceptance of the like-minded by those in power which appalls me as a Patriotic American who believes that our diversity is the strength of this Country.
PAD: …the conditions which lead to the Holocaust sixty years ago–which Americans blissfully say could never happen here–have indeed, to various degrees, been happening right up to modern day here in the United States.
David Bjorlin: …but the Holocaust is evil on a scale rarely seen even among our kind of slime.
“In 1994, in the hills of Rwanda, over the course of one hundred days, an estimated 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and their Hutu sympathizers were brutally murdered by Hutu extremists.” – Christian Science Monitor, Mar. 7, 2003 edition
Human Rights Watch estimates that Iraqi forces killed fifty-thousand to one-hundred-thousand people during the 1988 campaign against the Kurds.
David, I don’t really know your age, but those are some of the ones I remember seeing on television…I don’t have to know much history to see that the part of the human spirit that Hitler exemplifies is still very much with us. Saying it won’t happen because it’s so horrible it’s rare… I don’t think that’s reality. I think people are trying to do what Hitler did all the time, and when they achieve some success, they’re in the news. But if the problem was a few isolated madmen, that would be easy to solve. The dangerous thing is that people latch on to an authority figure and follow without question. And when an authority figure begins to abuse that authority, the people who have seen the same thing happen in other situations get a little unsettled.
Well, maybe Passion of the Christ is not going to set off a wave of anti-Semitism…I can’t see Mel Gibson whipping all of America into a Jew-hating storm, even if he was trying!
But I have seen a president use false claims to start a war. Well, there are a lot of non-bigoted conservatives out there who won’t believe everything Bush says just because he says it. But it’s hard to pretend that Bush didn’t just have a couple of hundred thousand troops invade a country without actually having to back up his claims…and that there are many people who won’t ask for evidence to back up his claims. You see, they just know he’s right. And they’ll overlook the fact that there are a couple of American citizens being held, not in some shadowy Orwellian future that the “hippie commies” have dreamed up, but this very second with the government denying that they have a right to a lawyer, a jury, or any kind of a trial at all, ever. Bush decides who will stay in jail forever, and you see, people just know he wouldn’t ever choose the wrong person or abuse his power.
Dave again:
this Republic looks nothing like a fascist police state. Our laws and our institutions are what protect us from the hate-filled slime.
What I can even say to make you understand? In Germany before the War, certainly the average citizen didn’t think of themself as an unreasonable person. Neither you nor I am unreasonable, right? (And I accept that you may disagree about me.) But most people don’t want to rock the boat if it doesn’t affect them. So they’ll let the small things go, find ways to excuse them.
Our Republic doesn’t look like a fascist police state? In the beginning, a fascist police state is one where the people are willing to overlook detentions, bigotry, hate, and abuse of power on a small scale, because once these things are introduced and accepted as normal by reasonable people, they can increase. The kind of “look” you’re talking about (where American citizens are hauled away to jail without trial in large numbers instead of just a couple at a time; where dissenters are jailed or shot instead of just investigated; where prisoners of war are openly tortured instead of sent to other countries for the dirty work) well, that’s the look of a police state that’s grown to full adulthood instead of one in its innocent-looking infancy.
I truly do not believe that we live in anything like a full-fledged police state. But our laws and institutions alone can’t protect us; they can be used and abused just like any other tool. If you believe it’s unjust to hold non-citizens without charges, but will accept it as long as it’s not citizens…And a year later you believe that it’s unjust to hold citizens without trial, but will accept as long as there aren’t many…Well, I will suggest a social experiment. If you haven’t already decided what the unacceptable level is, decide now before something else becomes “normal”. You say that this Republic looks nothing like a police state. Decide what a police state looks like. Now write down the list and put it on your wall. Make sure it’s something unambiguous, because I’m pretty sure I thought a while ago that if the government put even one American citizen into jail indefinitely without a trial, that would be the start of a police state. But my life hasn’t changed that much since then…Anyway, put down all the details (will 50 citizens jailed indefinitely be enough to define a police state, or will there have to be something completely over the top- suspension of the Constitution?) See if your definition doesn’t change if any of these things actually happens: if 50 citizens are held without charges- but it was a truly heinous crime; if the Constitution is suspended- but it’s only for a temporary emergency…
If we believe that it can’t happen in America just because it’s America, even if we’ve seen it happen with people everywhere…doesn’t that make us a little bigoted?
I’m all for nitpicking at the small infractions before there’s anything recognizable as a police state- like the suspension of the right to a trial. Ummm, I mean for more people. Like 50 maybe. Unless it’s just a temporary emergency, or the crime was truly heinous…or if it’s been done in the history of the US before.
As Dave O’Connell so eloquently pointed out by example in the post above, people will find all sorts of reasonable excuses for the abuse of power, because they would desperately like to believe not only that nothing will go wrong, but that nothing has gone wrong at all (and therefore there is no need for them to change their beliefs or rock the boat): Dave says that Bush is not actually abusing his power because there is legal precedent: American citizens were held “without counsel or trial” in WWII.
May I suggest to you as gently as possible, Dave, that an abuse of power can happen even with legal precedent? You can go with the letter of the law and still be wrong; Japanese internment camps were legal and even popularly supported in WWII; they were certainly not a “subversion of established legal principles” (at least, not then. The main question I’m asking is whether the President really should legally have the power to execute any citizen he chooses, without them having recourse to counsel or a trial. Because he claims he has that right, even if he also says he would never abuse it.
First, Some one please take that Bendis freak’s “copy/paste” license away!
Second, I agree whole-heartedly with what PAD has said here.
Third, for those who have said that Bush is merely enforcing the status quo because no society has EVER endorsed gay marriage, I offer the following (and a search on the internet will give you the evidence. I’m not handy enough with HTML to link it for you, sorry.
The following non-religious societies have endorsed gay marriage in history:
The Greeks, The Romans, The Egyptians, The Chinese, Several Native American Tribes, Several African Tribes, Early Middle-Eastern Tribes.
The following religions have endorsed gay marriage at some point in their history:
Judeaism, Christianity (for 900 years, no less), Islam, Greco-pantheism (Specifically related to Dionycean sects), Roman pantheism (specifically related to the Bacchanals)Hinduism. (Buddhism did, as well, but I tend to think of that more as a philosophy than a religion.)
So the “status quo” that Bush is defending is a recent development.
Tim Lynch wrote:
Could you perhaps tone down on the massive overgeneralization?
(And on a more general note, how did this thread suddenly turn back into the gay-marriage thread? Is the issue really that all-encompassing?)
Last question first. PAD brought up the gay marriage issue in the post that starts this thread, so it didn’t suddenly turn back in a gay marriage thread.
First question last: What massive overgeneralization?
I’m just curious how many people here have even read the proposed amendment, or is everyone here just going on soundbites. For the record, the amendment DOES NOT ban gay marriages.
The Federal Marriage Amendment is narrowly tailored to address negative developments in the courts. At the same time, the amendment does not depart from principles of federalism under which family law is, for the most part, a state matter. The traditional autonomy of state legislatures on family law matters is preserved by the text of the amendment.
So any state can still legalized gay marriages (I.E. Hawaii, Mass, Vermont). However, a federal judge can’t just make a ruling in Hawaii that affects the entire country. Since marriage is a states right issue, this amendment would reserve it as a power to the states.
Jerry
This blig has nothing to do with the movie it’s self it has turned into another Bush bashing thread…..
sigh…
Some people is crazy and the need no arguments.It’s obvious Jesus death was caused by Romans and Jewish (I
EClark:
First question last: What massive overgeneralization?
The one that said everyone in favor of gay marriage would be cheering if Bush had suggested an amendment allowing it.
While I’ve no doubt hypocrisy is rampant on both sides of the issue of gay marriage, altering the Constitution isn’t on most people’s agendas (at least most of the ones I know).
TWL
Paranoid? No. The Jews still have much to fear in the world. One need only look to the Middle East, France, Germany, or in some cases much closer than that to see that Anti-Semitism is still alive and kicking in the world.
Overreacting when it comes to this movie? Yes. I’m not hearing anyone say that this movie was intentionally Anti-Semetic, just that it might cause stupid, impressionable, suggestible people to act or feel in an Anti-Semetic manner. If this was a comic book instead of a movie, I wonder what the CBLDF would have to say to people who said that the book should not be published or sold due to these concerns?
Jerry, what I’m attempting to do is voice the corner of a group of countries and people you (and several others on this board) seem intent on defaming. The fact that you have two sources rather than one does not address my query about if the levels of anti-semmitism are comparable in the US, not does it make a difference. I’m trying to explain that you can’t base an argument about misperceived levels of anti-Semmitism (or whatever) in the US by saying that ‘at least its better than in Europe’ without attempting to understand how things are different there. All that attitude will accomplish is misrepresentation of a group of countries which generally have the same level of intolerance for such practices as the US.
My mimicry of your own posts and demonstration of how the same words can be applied to situations outside them was indeed a way to make my point. It was an effort to show how the situation is not how you paint it, it is in fact quite similar in some places. (And frankly, I couldnt resist the last one)
If you want to get offended, I can’t stop you, but you did not once reply to any of the core issues on the post I made, I am curious to see how you would.
I see no difference between Hitler and Ariel Sharon.
So are you blind, or is it something more seriously wrong with you? Because, if you honestly believe that, then you have some warped conceptions of what went on during WW2, and what is going on now.
I suggest reading a bit more, then you will sound less like a wacko. Maybe a graphic novel? Something like MAUS. Then try to find anything even remotely similar happening today in Israel.
The Israeli/Palesteni conflict has wrongdooers on both sides. Isreali citizens live each day with car bombings, suicide bombs on buses, and school bombings. Yes, they retaliate against the Palestenians. I expect most people would. But even if you can claim they should turn the other cheek, there is still no comparison to their actions, and the actions of Hitler rounding up every jew they could find and gassing them. This conflict in the middle east would have to go on for another hundred or more years to even approach the death toll of just the jews.
Unless you’re going to claim the holocaust didn’t happen, next?
“More name-calling. You don’t like “liberal” or “right-wing”, but calling someone a “monkey ” is okay?”-ECLark
Uh, hopefully you’re joking about that, cuz that’s how I sign all my posts. I wasn’t calling you or anyone else a monkey, other than perhaps myself, I guess.
Sorry, Toby, but I’m not familiar with your sig. I don’t get it, but I accept your explanation.
So, when it gets used on a concervative’s blog, is it a right wing epithet?
I’m sure someone would think so, don’t you?
And if what the individuals being called bigots are saying/doing falls into the category or scope of bigotry, does that not make them, or at least what they say bigotry?
You are missing my point and proving it at the same time. It’s irrelevant what category it falls under. Calling it a bigotry as PAD did puts a chill on the debate. Now, instead of just defending my position on whether gay marriage should be allowed or not, I also have to contend with being judge on whether or not I’m a bigot. And that is completely unfair as well as wrong.
And to answer your question, no it doesn’t make what they say or believe bigotry. Yes, I admit that my religious upbringing makes me see homosexuality as a sin, but that isn’t the reason that I oppose gay marriage. I believe that the number one purpose of marriage the upbringing of children procreated within that marriage. And while I recognize that not every marriage produces a child, you have to at least meet the starting qualification to even try, that being one male and one female. By definition, same-sex couples don’t meet that qualification. Now how does believing that make me or anyone who believes it, as I do, a bigot? Not only that, but there are many gays who don’t want gay marriage either for that and other reasons. Are they bigots as well? Heck, there’s one lesbian who writes a column on Salon.com who wants to see marriage ended all together. Is she a bigot, because she’s against same-sex marriage as well? Or is it okay for her because she just has a different opinion? If so, why give her a pass, because she gay?
3 and 3,
You didn’t present any core issues. Lay some out and I will address them. All you did was (incorrectly) attack the source of my information (unless the official police reports from France are invalid now), then mimic and mock me and my arguements. If you want to address this seriously, and rationally, let me know. Present some information besides “because I say so..nanananabooboo”.
The US has the highest jewish population in the world, but the lowest per capita anti-semetic occurances. We also don’t have 97% of our citizens saying there are to many muslims, or 86% saying there are too many blacks. That’s scary, and that’s a recipe for another holocaust type event, and that is the current xenophobic mindset in France.
I’ve been there, for extended periods of time. Still have relations and friend in France, and many of them are terrified by the current social and political xenophobic climate. The overwhelming majority of people in France don’t want emmigrants to even have basic rights, or to be able to vote.
But hey, if this is all right with you, then that’s a personal issue you have to deal with yourself.