Such other matters as the President considers appropriate.

[nancylebov]

McCain and Leiberman have proposed a bill which allows for indefinite detention of American citizens at the president's whim.

Niemöller [1] is not mocked.

The whole point of "enemy combatant" was to put people outside the law, so that the government could do whatever it pleased to them. The law isn't an absolutely reliable protection, but it's a good bit better than nothing.

It was obvious to me that there was no reason for American government lawlessness to be limited to people who aren't American citizens.

I don't take the abuse of non-Americans lightly. A good bit of the anger in this post is for the Americans who thought indefinite detention without charge could only happen to someone else.

SEC. 5. DETENTION WITHOUT TRIAL OF UNPRIVILEGED ENEMY BELLIGERENTS.

An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent under section 3(c)(2) in a manner which satisfies Article 5 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported, consistent with the law of war and any authorization for the use of military force provided by Congress pertaining to such hostilities.

Information about the bill from Glenn Greenwald, from an article at The Huffington Post which I found out about it because Steve Barnes was interested in the people from the French Television show who weren't willing to give big electric shocks.

I'm feeling let down by my friendslist. What happened to the glory days when every frightening thing the government was doing was urgent news? Teapartyers behaving like assholes is not a substitute.

Perhaps I'm being unfair-- I don't follow facebook or twitter, and lj's been kind of quiet lately. Has anyone else heard about this monstrous bill?

Anyway, here are the sponsors of the bill:
Sen. John McCain [R-AZ]

Scott Brown [R-MA]

Saxby Chambliss [R-GA]

James Inhofe [R-OK]

George LeMieux [R-FL]

Joseph Lieberman [I-CT]

Jefferson Sessions [R-AL]

John Thune [R-SD]

David Vitter [R-LA]

Roger Wicker [R-MS]

More, more, more. Did Obama really authorize INTERPOL to operate independently in the US, without regard for the bill of rights.


[1] First they came for the..... and when they finally came for me, there was no one to speak up.

Comments

[avram]

First, by referring to people as "contemptible idiots", you are yourself engaging in the very behavior that you are claiming invalidates one's position. If you're correct, you have just undermined your own argument.

Fortunately for you, however, you're incorrect. An ad hominem insult does not invalidate one's entire argument. An argument usually consists of multiple points. Imagine someone saying, for example, "Two plus two equals four. Also, you're a doody-head." The second sentence of that argument is a worthless and immature ad hominem, but the first sentence remains true regardless.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

The reason I try to avoid using insults is that I think insults make it harder for them to pay attention to anything but the insult.

[avram]

Which is why it remains useful as a tactic.

I think insults should not be a habit, used thoughtlessly. But they're useful for distracting the other guy, or getting your own team revved up.

And also, sometimes you've just gotta vent.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

* If I had said, "this group of people are contemptible idiots and therefore their arguments are wrong," that would have been ad hominem. What I said was, "the arguments of this group of people are fallacious and therefore wrong, and relying on that method of argument makes them contemptible idiots." In other words, the judgment "contemptible idiot" was a conclusion, and not the basis on which some other conclusion was reached.

* Your example is totally irrelevant, because it does not contain any argument whatsoever. It contains two statements, neither of which is presented as a reason for believing the other.

* Tactically, if you were engaged in debate, and you resulted in insults or ad hominem arguments, and the other side didn't know how to cope with them, you might "win" the confrontation. But if I were listening, you would do nothing to convince me that your opponent was wrong, nor to persuade me to adopt your position, because you would not have offered a reasoned argument. Indeed, if anything, I would conclude that you were not interested in establishing the truth, but only in winning by fair means or foul, which would decrease your credibility in my eyes.

* And besides, your opponent might be onto your tricks, and then you would be pwned like T. H. Huxley pwned the bishop.

* In any case, I was originally commenting to nancylebov, whom I took to be engaged not in debate or political point scoring but in reflective conversation. My point, which she took with good grace, was that the use of a hostile epithet for an entire political movement did not strike me as serving her basic purpose, nor give me a good impression of her. Given her response, I will credit her with its being no more than a momentary lapse in civility; I am less prepared to credit you with the same.

[avram]

You said, up above: "When you are arguing with contemptible idiots who use abusive epithets, and you conduct yourself in a civilized manner, arguing the issues, the evidence, and the logic, they are committing ad hominem and proving that their position has no merit." You didn't specify that the ad hominem had to be a structural part of the argument, with other claims resting logically upon the ad hominem claim. You instead said that the use of an insult constitutes ad hominem, and invalidates the position of the person using the insult. Your words are right there; re-read them for yourself.

(Actually, you specified that one party is using insults, while the other is not. This leaves open the possibility that things might be different if both parties are being insulting. I don't expect you to actually make that argument.)

So now you're shifting the goalposts, saying that insults only invalidate an argument if they are used as the logical basis for claims. Fine, I agree with that. But it's not what you said upthread.

As for as your reply to my tactical argument goes, let me point out that you were the one who used the insulting phrase "contemptible idiots". And while you addressed it directly to no party present, and wrapped it in a hypothetical, it was obvious that you meant it as a moral judgment aimed in my general direction, given the context. You don't have the moral high ground here.

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

I would not say that I was shifting the goal posts so much as making it clearer where I had intended them to be in the first place. I assumed that this was a more casual and friendly conversation that it actually appears to be, and that you would fill out my enthymemes as needed.

Though I would also note that if two people are arguing, and one of them insults the other, it's a fairly likely assumption that they're doing so in order to win the argument, especially if the argument is being conducted in public. Conceivably someone might call someone else a "capitalist running dog" purely out of hostility or frustration, but it's often a rhetorical device for discrediting them as a means to discrediting their arguments.

But I did not use the phrase "contemptible idiots" to discredit your argument, but rather to express the moral judgment I would make of you if you persisted in insulting the people you disagreed with rather than criticizing their arguments. Since you maintain that it's legitimate for you to do so, I will take that judgment out of the hypothetical.

And at this point there is no reason for us to discuss this further.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

If you believe it's bad to insult people, then I'd rather if you were consistent about it. An insult that takes a little logic-parsing to work out is still an insult.