Really? Lyndie england was how long ago?

Uh... Lyndie England and her low-ranking cohorts were expendable fall guys (and a girl) for a general policy of torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Their defense teams all insisted they were following orders, and even named names of their superior officers who ordered them to commit acts of torture (some of whom received stern administrative wrist-slappings, but of course there was never a trial of any officer - I'm sure that aspect of the story has probably received scant media coverage as well).

Great example yet again, Jones.

Tolstoy, I'm really glad Sicarius has a friend/sycophant. I was worried for him. Its good to have you here.

Oh no, that's ok, you dont feel; obligated to make any kind of intelligent response, just go on an irrelevant tangent so you can sidestep being so wrong

Sicarius, intelligent responses don't work with you. You posted a link on Stephanian, I pointed out that he wasn't a 'petty vandal' but a terrorist, and suddenly you had no more replies. I posted my response to the Greyhound Gulag and that wasn't enough. Again, nothing. I pointed out that the portion of the law you posted was repealed, again, no response.

The only thing I got out of you was 'ok jones, deny it till they're at your door. ' Is that an intelligent response?

I'm not sure what good an intelligent response will do. You'll just find another unverifiable news 'story' and say 'look at this!!! We're all going to die!!!'

My 'intelligent response'? Lyndie England, while a 'fall guy', did far more damage to America than the Greyhound Gulag did. If the government had the power to censor the media they way you claim, I would think they would have censored the Lyndie England story before the Greyhound Gulag.

Sicarius you're painful to read. Go back to Prison Planet.

I'm not making you read what I type. thats the wonderful thing about individual freedom.

"Tolstoy, I'm really glad Sicarius has a friend/sycophant. I was worried for him. Its good to have you here. "

I may not agree with Sicarius on everything, but I believe he is honest, well-intentioned, and obviously not afraid to stand up for what he feels is right no matter how many 'normal' people laugh at him. I'd rather be associated with a rock-throwing anarchist than the vast army of bootlicking zombified conformity-obsessed couch potatoes who think the police are always there to help you, tax dollars are always well-spent, politicians always have the best of selfless intentions, and think Americans are free so long as they can pull a lever every four years for one of the two pre-approved presidential candidates. I for one think the world could use a few more Sicarii and a few less zombies.

If your comment was intended to insult, you missed.

How do either of you get through life being so unhappy about everything? We have a lot of problems, big problems, in this country and people like you kooks de-legitimize the discourse to solve them.

Let's hope Tolstoy's militia and Sicarius' Anarchist Radical Queer Indigenous Homeless Great-Ape-Personhood Liberation Front don't meet on the field of battle in the revolution.

@I, You made me laugh. I'm not unhappy about *everything*, just most things.

Do you really think the world would be a better place if all the 'kooks' who 'de-legitimized the discourse' throughout history had just sat down and shut up? Certainly, that would be a very boring history book. It would've been the death knell for just about every political revolution in history (both good and bad).

No, I mean the real kooks. I mean like the Birthers and Truthers and NWO nuts and critical race theorists and that manner of moonbattery. You're both all but in those sorts of camps and that kind of lunacy does much more harm than good.

Because of people putting swastikas on Obama posters the media can marginalize the important grievances of the Tea Party. Because of false alarms like this thread topic about "secret" prisons in the US the idea that our liberties are being eroded is discredited.

Idiots get in the way, and both of you have more idiot ideas than sane ones.

"important grievances of the Tea Party"
@Invictus, good one. ...Oh... you're serious.

The forces of history are far beyond any mere mortal's beliefs about who is sane and who is crazy. John Brown was an obvious kook. But without him, there may not've been a Civil War and (many a Lincoln-worshiper would argue) slavery never would've been abolished. Brown - who told one of his sons to "shut up and die like a man!" after he'd been mortally wounded - was practically worshiped by many abolitionists, the extremist set of which was considered kooks themselves. But as soon as the Civil War started, John Brown the kook who was hanged for treason became John Brown the hero immortalized by a marching song of the army that had executed him just two years earlier.

Have you ever heard the name Fritz Gerlich? He was also a 'kook' who self-published a newspaper saying that the newly elected government was all about war, tyranny, and murder. Nobody took him seriously, nobody noticed or cared or raised a big fuss when he disappeared. I'm sure you can guess what happened to him, why, and by whom. Yet today, instead of being considered a crazy loon who polluted the civil discourse of a democratic society, he is considered a hero.

As for Birthers, Truthers, and the like, I don't agree with all of them, but they have every right to say their peace. Who knows - they may be right and I wrong. I've had to adjust my views occasionally over the years after looking into matters such as these; sometimes I've gone further over the cliff of kookiness, and sometimes I've gone back to the plains of conformity. But if I'd closed my mind, I'd still be standing in the same spot - and have been more ignorant for it. Looking into things and trying to determine what is true and what is false for yourself instead of accepting the truth that others have defined for you is the best kind of mental exercise there is - you're really missing out, even if you come to the conclusion that you've been right about everything all along.

And there are strange, kooky, vulgar, and ugly people in every political movement. If the media wants to discredit you and your grievances, there will always be a way. Such is life.

*slow clap

* slightly less slow clap


I've made this point before but I'll make it again. The internet is alienating. when we talk here, you can't see my face or my expression, you just see a blue colored 'Sicarius" telling you all these crazy ideas. You dont see an almost twenty skin who will always try to make you smile. There is this unbridgeable chasm between us that is internet anonymity and distance. It would be much easier to get along and have a real conversation (conversation being the intelligent exchange of ideas that benefits all parties) that isnt sidetracked by people just trying to get a rise out of eachother, or spun off into irrelevant tangents by the short attention span of electronic communication, if onl we could sit next to one another..
I don't think theres a single person here who I coulndt find substantial common ground with if only we really knew each other. Even those who seem diametrically opposed to me, like dingleberry, or more concise and rationalized, invictus, thucydides, chrisp, ghost, etc. I have friends who are in the military, who are evangelical christians, who are staunch republicans and democrats, who hate 'leftists' and think I am one. but with all these people who seem so opposite me, I have found such a large feild of common ground. just because I, an anarchist, may call something 'sun kissed brown' (because as you all know I love to romantasize things) doesnt mean that we're talking baout different things when you call it 'tan'.
or 'food not bombs' to 'victory gardens' etc.
really we all have idealogical common ground. it's just hard to find in an environment like this (chat room) because we're all too caught up on definitions, and to my infinite chagrin, debate procedure.
if you're looking to disagree, you can always find a reason. but if you just remain open, you may find good ideas in places you would never expect. like from an anarchist, or a communist, or weirdo neo-pagan nature hippie, or grizzled old WWII vet, or even capitalists.
so keep that in mind as we continue to argue on the web until infinity (or at least until theres no more electricity =] )

sorry for the tangent.

"Let's hope Tolstoy's militia and Sicarius' Anarchist Radical Queer Indigenous Homeless Great-Ape-Personhood Liberation Front don't meet on the field of battle in the revolution."
hey as long as it's not a repeat of krondstat (sp)

also invictus, are you a tea partier? if so can you explain why you're behind them? I havnt been able to take them seriously, just seems like a lot of pissed off middle class white folks who dont mind having glenn beck and sarah palin be their spokespeople.

Sicarius, all that may be well and good. But to me, just telling how I feel about you, you don't seem to want to have an intelligent exchange of ideas. You want to push an agenda, regardless of the truth of it.

When you posted the link about, i can't remember his name now, but the animal rights 'vandal'. You tried making the point here that he was just a petty vandal who broke a window. When I read into the case, which had been unfamiliar to me, I found out that it wasn't so cut and dry as you put it. So I provided a few more facts, showing that it wasn't petty random vandalism, but a targeted campaign to scare people, to TERRORize people into behaving a certain way.

You never responded to that. Why? I am all for intellectual discourse, but why didn't that topic suddenly no longer interest you?

And as much as I agree with you that people should get all their news from CNN, and shouldn't believe everything there, I also don't think they should get all their news from lewrockwell.com. Substituting one biased news source for another doesn't get you any closer to truth.

"Substituting one biased news source for another doesn't get you any closer to truth. "
agree completely 100%
see we do have common ground!

i never responded to that because I see it as an impasse. I dont think that what he did constitutes terrorism. we will just have to agree to disagree. smashing a vivisectors windows and encouraging others to smash a vivisectors windows is not on par with bombing an embassy, or flying a plane into a skyscraper. actions that try to change other opinions with symbolic actions (property destruction) are on a totally different level with those who try to change others opinions with brute force (actual loss of life).
i think it's important to mention that ELF and ALF actions (americas most dangerous 'terrorists' according to DHS) have never resulted in even ONE death or even injury. that is sharply contrasted with the actions of say Manuel Rodriguez Patriotic Front, or Aum Supreme Truth, or Jamaat ul-Fuqra.
the US military will probably kill more civilians this week than the ELF or ALF ever will.

I don't think you need to agree it was terrorism. However, I think it is dishonest to try to pass it off as 'petty vandalism'. By doing that, you aren't looking for intellectual conversation. You are an attorney presenting only the facts that help your case, SPINNING it, trying to push your agenda.

I'm not trying to spin it, at least not consciously.
i see what he did as petty vandalism. no one was hurt, except HLS's pocketbooks. whats a new window anyway, 100$? lets say it was a really big expensive window. 1000$?
in 2002 they made $115.7 million. so that window didnt hurt them financially. it was a symbolic action. on par with spraypainting 'no war' somewhere.

I'm not trying to 'pass it off' as petty vandalism. i think it was petty vandalism.
of course you may disagree, but i wasnt trying to fool you. ALL writers are propagandists, you cant write anything, even a dictionary, without your personal beliefs shining through.
you dont agree with me, take things I say with a grain of salt, ou should know this by now, as much as you disagree with me. but dont' say I'm tryingg to fool you.
I like real truth more than politicized truth, because politicized truth is not truth, it's propaganda. maybe I dont always cite my sources, or fully explain things, but this is due to eagerness, not conscious deception

"I'm not trying to 'pass it off' as petty vandalism. i think it was petty vandalism. "

Again, i think you are being dishonest. You know the intent wasn't to cost the business $100, it was to try to scare the owners. If you break a window at McDonalds, they spend $100 and fix it and move on. But, even if you want to use your terms, its 'petty vandalism with a scary message'. There's a reason he wasn't charged with 'petty vandalism', yet you want to pretend he's in maximum security lockup because of a vandalism charge.

I didn't say he was charged with vandalism. I said I think what he actually did was akin to vandalism.
i dont think "'petty vandalism with a scary message'" should land you in a CMU.
and I think the reason he wasn't charged with 'petty vandalism' was because it was a political action.

Do you see a difference in these two sentences?

"I received 30 years in prison for writing graffiti on a building"
"I received 30 years in prison for writing 'Jews must die' on a synagogue"

No, you were trying to play the sympathy card.

The attempt here is to portray the Powers That Be as overreaching and despotic, by hyping up their actions against this guy, and downplaying his own actions that led him there. The breaking of the windows and whatnot wasn't the action of some drunk college kid after a weekend bender. It was an attempt to intimidate and cause a stink.

By your logic, a mobster that breaks a store's window for not pay protection money is guilty of nothing more than "petty vandalism". Which is wrong.

At least be honest and say you're trying to push your own agenda... playing the spin game just makes you stink of the same hypocrisy.

Thanks Jack, yes, that's the point I'm getting at.

ok I should have been more clear. my opinion of this is colored by the fact that for the most part, I agree with his actions.

Foxnews could have written your last post Sicaruious

Maybe it's just me (and Sicarius) but I put ALF and ELF in a different category than Timothy McVeigh, Black September, Al Qaeda, etc. The latter all consciously and deliberately use(d) murder (and threat of murder) for their ends. Heck, I'd put Operation Rescue down as more of a terrorist organization than ALF - even if they didn't directly kill anyone, they clearly promoted and enabled killings. ALF may not be simply petty vandalism (I'm not sure of the definition - but they probably exceed some monetary measure of what is "petty") but they are clearly not in the same category as terrorists who murder. Does breaking a window cause terror? I guess that could be argued... but it seems like it would be some sort of petty terrorism (I know, that sounds bizarre) - but really... how much terror can they be causing? Financial distress, yes. Terror? That seems pretty weak. How much terror does one feel when their life is *not* being threatened?