Letters to the Editor
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Dear William,
No let a bowl of oatmeal and raisins with honey and yogurt go unattended. why?
You may not have antsy pants, but you will have a cold bowl full of hungry piss-ants. Dam-nit to all the red hair ants and their mates too.
I'd not give it to a French "journalist" who kisses Dick Cheney's YNW or an American piss-ant-crony!
I'll e- mail a bowl of oats with a ant-recipe anonymously to the NYT!
signed from,
Dear Mr Timberman!
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czrpb00 re: morality in law
One of the problems I thought the right has/had with whistle-blowers and leakers is to a great extent that they are seen as rats and disloyal etc. They see the act itself as immoral.
That seems like a true statment to me. One of the things that would make laws much less hazy and a lot more useful is to minimize the morality aspect and focus on the practical. The Wiccan/pagan morality of minimizing harm (I first noticed it in Heinlein writings) seems to be the most simple and effective. One should have to demonstrate harm before legislating against it. Beyond that, government intervention should be based on practicality, not morality. How to deal with health care and energy infrastructure, IMHO, should be on a basis of practicality. (Aside: I think the health care "system" we have now is not practical except for the wealthy, the insurance companies, and the administrators.)
Somebody mentioned an anti-retaliation law as a better idea than a shield law. I'm all for that. One caveat: an anti-retaliation law has to be pretty airtight, and with very big, sharp teeth to be effective.
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Oops
Forgot to put quotes around the first paragraph - that is czrpb00's.
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I have taken to re-reading Glenn's letters lately
We could all learn from them. Not only what he thinks but how what he thinks develops over time. We all change. Political conciousness evolves and is not static.
Glenn Greenwald... Labels
He's a self-described libertarian . . . .
For whatever it's worth, though many people have made this assertion, I actually have not self-applied that label, or any other. People argue about these labels constantly but I find those arguments laregly unproductive because people so rarely use the terms with any agreed upon meaning. For that reason, I prefer to make whatever arguments I make and leave it to others to pick whatever labels they want, and I virtually never (if ever) embrace or reject any specific label someone applies, since the meaning of those lables is always so fluid and imprecise.
I've argued before that the Bush presidency has fostered an ideological/political re-alignment where the terms "right" and "left" (even "conservative" and "liberal") bear little resemblance to what they meant in prior decades, and that those terms are now almost exclusively used to reference whether one is a supporter or opponent of Bush's policies (specifically, neconservative foreign policies and liberty-abridging domestic policies). If one uses that definition, someone might be a "liberal" or "conservative," whereas if one uses the more traditional, 1990s version of those terms, the same person might warrant a completely different label. As but one example, note how this post relies upon Bob Barr to make a critical argument against the Patriot Act -- or how Jack Murtha, long considered one of the most conservative Democrats in the House, is now suddenly the face of the "far left." There are literally countless examples like that. The Joe Lieberman primary challenge was the most vivid example.
Permalink Friday, March 9, 2007 07:52 AM
http://letters.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2007/03/09/fbi/permalink/1385add3bf45f984324707365299c1f7.html
I want to amend that. Mona is not sick, but dysfunctional. We are all products of a very dysfunctional environment. What do you suppose Glenn has been writing about for that last few years? I think Glenn knows that Cuba and Venezuela are no threats to America. We may not agree with their politics but they aren't trying to force their politics on us.
As someone who has known them both since the days of 1200 baud rates, I'd say you know nothing.
-- Jebbie
Nobody really knows anyone. Few people even know themselves and most people are more likely to know others better than they know themselves.
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Bryan & the Law
... minimize the morality aspect and focus on the practical. The Wiccan/pagan morality of minimizing harm [] seems to be the most simple and effective. One should have to demonstrate harm before legislating against it.
Seems inconsistent: "Minimizing harm" is all about morality. So, I am not sure I understand your distinction between the moral aspect and the practical aspect in the law; seems to me that some moral component underlies a desired law which can be codified in variety of practical implementations.
Also, I much prefer the precautionary principle as a means of deciding how to act in a large number of cases.
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re: bebop-o
I voted for Kerry's red-head wife believing she may put a few good cooks, bottles of ketchup, and various conversationalist in the kitchen who had soul food that was more nourishing for the world than Bush's felines.
She's from my neck of the woods here in Pennsylvania, where respect for John Heinz was and still is pretty significant.
I'd rather have leaders accentuate the best principles and ethic that can possibly be animated to edify. To build up each other is better than "ripping" into one another.
I can sure see both good/evil in people but like their potential best nature. When hate, ridicule, and "clear thinking" suggest war, KB4Hire, I agree and I feel a ill-wonder that borders on a feeling of "disgust." It is not the person, and its NOT against them that I am struggling against, but it is the absurd in themselves they refuse to see?
If I'm understanding correctly, love the sinner but hate the sin.
I guess where I get frustrated is that no one seems to want to take responsibility for their actions these days. A common theme I always see in Glenn's postings about the press and the pundits and the politicians is that they are never held accountable for their own words, whether written or in verbal conversation on a national news show. Everything is totally malleable and up for grabs.
To me, a big part of our problem as a country is our hubris and arrogance, and our seemingly inability to say we were wrong. On a personal level, and with our politicians, and even our institutions, which were once held in such high regard.
In my twisted thinking, a huge piece of the puzzle of being a mature adult, a responsible person, friend, lover, family member, and solid citizen, is to exhibit a certain level of humility. To be able to admit when we are wrong and if necessary make some sort of amends. Isn't that part of what it means to be human?
So to bring this back to the off-topic subject at hand. I thought a certain person was just a little obsessed with the whole Libertarianism aspect of the situation. When it appears now to have more to do with flat out lying and being a hypocrite.