i thought snowden was (and is) a traitor. but at least he's an american. russia is an enemy. if an american is traitorous it's a criminal matter and you deal with it as such. if it's a foreign country, then you decide how serious the matter. is it enough for a shooting war? no. is it enough to cut off all trade and travel? maybe. at a certain point, a cyber attack does become an act of war. when a foreign country can rob banks on a massive scale, destroy infrastructure, at what point does it feel different when it's the result of a cyber bomb or a cyber bomb?


first, yes, i'm jingoistic. that's because i'm conservative. and by that i mean i'm a true conservative, by which i mean i am reticent to simply give in to new ways of thinking without making sure the old needs to be discarded. romney was right when he called russia our biggest geopolitical foe and obama was wrong when he replied that the 80s wants its foreign policy back.

as to the MSM, there is no MSM, if you mean that as a derisive term. there is the professional media. that's just another area where i'm conservative. when people are trained to report, and they do report, they are correct much, much more often than they're not. if you look at the wall street journal right now, and then you look at the NYT, you'll see basically the same news, because professional journalists write the news at both publications.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

how was it a surprising lack of knowledge when i specifically cited moddadeh, pinochet, et al, in a post higher up? along with listing a bunch of other strong men your article didn't mention we supported because they may be sons-a-bitches, but they're out sons-a-bitches.

i've felt and written and spoke this way for decades. the only difference now, today, is that it's finally happened to us. i don't give the russians a pass, because it was insidious when we did it - and yes, it was often an act of war when we did it - and it's insidious now that it's done to us.

there are two ways we can "interfere" in another country's election. we can do what we (along with the british) did to mossadegh in iran, or we can send the carter center in to monitor an election for fairness. i've always felt the latter was the better way to serve our interests.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I really don't understand how someone can claim that either party is somehow worse than the other when it comes to some nebulous "moral spine." Did any of the Democrats care that Hillary lied about her server and very possibly compromised national security with regards to classified information? Do any Dems care that the DNC conspired to make sure HRC beat Sanders (or do they just care where that info came from), or that HRC got inside info about the debates with TRump? Did any Dems care that Obama lied (and knew it when he said it) that you could keep your insurance if you liked it? How about the very real possibility of quid pro quo with HRC as SecState and the Clinton Foundation? How about the possibility that China interfered with the 1996 election with illegal campaign contributions? http://articles.latimes.com/...r/04/news/mn-24189/5

How about Dems looking the other way when HRC smeared all of the women who made claims of sexual harassment against BIll (and turned out to be largely truthful)?

Note that I'm not defending Republicans here, I'm merely trying to understand why you think that Democrats are any better when it comes to holding their own to account for similar transgressions.

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

It was a surprising lack of knowledge when you said "i don't think i would stipulate that we interfere in elections to this degree." I provided you with one article that gave several examples in which we interfered with elections to a much greater degree than what Russia is accused of during this past election. Failure to acknowledge those facts is simply willful ignorance.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

well, i'm not a democrat. but i did vote for hillary. so, speaking for myself, yes, i did care.


yes, i did care. and i think a lot of demcrats got sufficiently mad at that that DWS lost her job.



i don't think obama lied. i think obama was too naive to realize the effect it would have when "skinny" plans were outlawed. this used to be my industry (a way, way, way long time ago). i don't think this thread is the place for it but i'm happy to talk to you about it in another thread. yes, the ACA outlawed plans that were so bad and so deceitful as to violate the very spirit and reason for insurance. obama should have said, straight out, that you can't keep a skinny plan, but that nobody is going to take away a conforming plan.

Remember the time when Russia was the bad guy because of the lies printed in Pravda? Now it is the bad guy for revealing the truth.

I really cannot get worked up over this. Just a few years ago the U.S. supported and enabled the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Ukraine. Not only was the country on Russia's border but it housed Russia's most important naval base. The U.S. and its European allies then engaged in a propaganda campaign against Russia for protecting its national interests, and they have done their best to damage Russia's economy. A little tit for tat only seems fair. The fact that they can do it by showing the public the truth is some funny ironic shit.

The U.S. can dish it out but it sure cannot take it.

Hey, I'm not the one who decided to throw out the fact that it's the Republicans that lack a moral spine, with the clear implication that the Democrats are soooo much better in that regard.

Yes, we should be concerned about any foreign power that attempts to influence our elections. I for one think that illegal Chinese contributions to the Democrats in 1996 were at least as bad as Russia providing info on the inner dealings of the DNC. How about you? Were you this upset in 1996?

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

i don't believe we do interfere with elections to the degree russia is now doing. did we? yes. but mossadegh was 65 years ago. pinochet, somoza, batista, marcos, suharto, diem, these all took place between the 1950s and the 1970s. every example in the article you referenced took place in the 1940s, 50s, 60s, and then there was the one case (chile) in the early 1970s.

don't get me wrong. we are very much capable of backsliding. but i'm quite familiar with those cases, and i think we can stretch that into the 1980s with the continuing backing of noriega, hussein, duarte in el salvador. even the early 90s. some might say we continue this with our backing of the royals in the middle east.

but i think we turned a corner over the past quarter century. if anything we might be a bit too pro-democracy in the sense of trying to wedge or aid democracy along in countries that aren't ready for it. we haven't really learned the prime directive yet.

no, i don't see any evidence of what we did to mossadegh and iran in our more recent history. i don't think i'm naive in believing that.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

the difference between the republican party and republican party politics versus the democrats is not that one side is sinless and the other not. it's that one side feels some shame when one of its own is caught; the other side defends itself to the hilt.

what you do not see - did not see in the last election (at least i didn't see it) - were democrats defending the way they attacked clinton's accusers in the 90s. rather there was an acknowledgment of the wrong. what i see republicans doing is bringing up the attacking of the women in bill clinton's past as a way to deflect from donald trump. if you get rid of the social horseshit, which is really just religious horseshit, and you focus on the core of what it means to be a conservative, i'm there, baby! i'm one of you! or to put it another way, are you one of me? are you a true conservative? i don't know.

i believe in one person, one vote; allowing the small guy a pathway to pull himself up by the seat of his pants; avoiding foreign entanglements; honesty; your word is your bond; taking responsibility for your own failures; paying your own debts; charity; probity, civility, respect for those who've earned it (like police, military, scientists, engineers, doctors; researchers, teachers). the republican party is supposed to be that, even when the other party isn't. today, the republican party simply tries to excuse itself by digging into the past to find something - anything! - the other side did that allows it to get out of the responsibility for its own behavior. no thanks.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I think we are more closely aligned on things than perhaps it shows (I agree with much of your previous post; not all, but most of it), but I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on the notion that the Dems feel any more shame than Republicans when they get caught doing something wrong. And I think that you are often predisposed to give Democrats the benefit of the doubt on just about anything. Case in point: You routinely chide the Bush admin for not foreseeing the debacle in Iraq (quite correctly); yet you will defend the decision for regime change in Libya and the ensuing chaos there as unforeseeable, even though Obama and Hillary had the benefit of 20/20 hindsight WRT to what happened in Iraq. And I think that sort of thing seems to permeate much of your postings.

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

actually, no. in point of fact it controls an industry of fake news and misinformation.


that's one way of looking at it. are you talking about the 2004 election? moscow backed its candidate. the U.S. backed its candidate. we are unfortunately back into the cold war. i like the idea of NATO. i like the idea that the baltics, moldova, ukraine, georgia, poland, hungary, the czech and slovak republics, bulgaria, romania are their own free countries now. yes, there is going to be a struggle in these countries to keep their democracy. yes, NATO is going to need to be vigilant, because russia already tried its "sudetenland" move in the crimea.

i don't apologize for wanting to keep putin in check, so that a lot of former soviet satellites can remain free (or at least have a shot at working out their freedom).

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

i don't think i ever defended the decision on libya. i simply reminded people here of the facts surrounding libya. think what you want about obama. that guy is going to tell the truth about himself. what he did well, what he did badly. when he writes his book, he's going to take responsibility for what he did wrong.

and i also give bush a lot more credit, i think, than others do, because you get in there and you do the best you can. maybe you make mistakes. in fact, you will make mistakes.

that said, this is one of the things that bothers me about republicanism. how many lives to the U.S. lose in iraq? how many U.S. lives in the takedown of kaddafi? this thing of constantly equating. this is what drives me nuts about republicanism. when is that party going to grow a pair and stop the constant hunting around for some kind of equivalency so as to get itself off the hook for its own fudge ups?

in short, if you take two guys who ran in the last election, bernie sanders and donald trump, i probably would align myself (excluding the social horseshit) with whatever trump's policies turn out to be more so than sanders's policies. but sanders is a man. trump is a child. sanders is honorable. trump is not. sanders is everything a conservative party should style itself as, in terms of honor. that republicanism keeps trying to explain, protect and defend trump is why i cannot ever be a republican until it has its road to damascus moment.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

I think you have deeply selective memory and perceptions.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

1). It's a strawman to claim I'm equating US involvement in Iraq with Libya; I'm equating the aftermath of regime change in those two states.

2). I am not now, nor ever defended Trump to the best of my recollection. Did not vote for the man and am not particularly impressed with him as President thus far.

And with that, good night.

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

People really need to stop pretending all the Russians did was release some emails? Yes they did that, they also created and targeted fake news and propaganda in pumped it out in swing states, they also at best simply attempted to recruit high level assets close to Trump, at worst succeeded, it appears they continue to actively recruit and compromise high level assets. This is not small potatoes.

people need to stop creating false equivalencies between the U.S. and the russians. yes, the U.S. has meddled in other countries (tho mostly in the middle half of the last century). yes, the U.S. behaves badly. yes, the U.S. interferes when it shouldn't. (and sometimes interferes when it should.)

most of the time the interference, whether wise or unwise, is actually for a pretty good reason, as in, because it wants to prevent a massacre of innocents. the U.S. did involve itself in the balkans and saved a lot of lives. it didn't in rwanda and probably it should have. it didn't in syria and maybe it should have.

what we know is what DID happen when the U.S. did or didn't involve itself. what we don't know is what would've happened if we'd chosen differently.

no, i don't think the U.S. and russian leadeship are moral equals. i don't understand those who do.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Fortunately, I don't think anyone here suggested that they are. But it's good that you cleared that up.

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Slowguy

(insert pithy phrase here...)

you might want to look at arch stanton's post. i had a hard time determining what moral space he thought there was between us and russia. perhaps you could help me on that.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

i thought snowden was (and is) a traitor. but at least he's an american. russia is an enemy.

I didn't realize we were officially in the midst of the Second Red Scare.

But you seem to have missed the point of the Snowden analogy. You might very well think he's a traitor. That doesn't change the fact that he exposed important and valuable information to the public.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."