Thank you Bob! I frequently watch, but I had to sign up for an account to affirm Bob's stance on prisoners. A cornerstone of our judicial system's legitimacy is that we release people if there is no evidence to hold them. If the US does not have evidence to hold these suspected terrorists, then we will have to catch them another day when we do have the evidence. This is the same way it works for drug dealers, gangsters, murderers, rapists, and every other sort of undesirable. They are not criminals until we convict them. This past Sunday on Meet the Press, Gingrich articulated the obvious fall out if we do not release the prisoners we do not have significant evidence against. He advocated for a prison to hold people with no evidence and no trial until the end of the war on terror, in other words forever. He is asking the American people to trust our government with the power to throw people in jail indefinitely without a cause backed up by evidence simply by labeling them a terrorist. There has to be more accountability for our government than that. That's why we have courts.

Releasing KSM would certainly be distasteful, but the odds of him engaging in serious terrorist activities seem fairly slim. After Bin Laden, he would be the most famous terrorist in the world. Who, in their right mind, would dare collaborate with someone that recognizable who practically every major intelligence service in the world would be trying to track? How many terrorists would trust him after years in the hands of the US and after the US—very counter-intuitively—released him of its own free will? You'd be far far safer just plotting your terrorist act as far away from this man as possible. He's too high-profile and too potentially compromised. What could he possibly have to offer than could outweigh these enormous negatives?

Bob was doing his best David Letterman impression by flipping his pen and catching it there at the end.

International law supports our government detaining some of these guys indefinitely, i.e., until the War ends. The law is very clear on this. What is not clear is whether or not the individuals picked up in countries other than Afghanistan and Iraq (where the battlefields are), e.g. Egypt, Europe, or wherever, can be detained indefinitely. Apparently the Obama administration is going to argue that the battlefield is not only in Afghanistan or Iraq, but wherever these guys can be found (kind of like pirates sailing the oceans --- ancient and modern law). They are not ordinary criminals and ordinary criminal law simply does not and should not be applied to international terrorists.

There are at least four reasons to read Bob's book.

It's not true that there's no one who wants these prisoners in their community. The city council of Hardin Montana has already offered to have Gitmo detainees relocated to the maximum security prison in their town.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009...namo-detainees
Even if KSM were to escape he would be pretty conspicuous wandering around Big Sky country.

Haha... pretty much any of the super max prisons would be good places to keep these guys. I'm not against housing them in the United States either.

Bob, thank you so much for this: http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/199...4:33&out=15:22 It drives me nuts when wingnuts throw around the "activist judges" charges and scream bloody murder about "empathy" and strict adherence to the Constitution, when in the BIGGEST ruling of my lifetime, all their boys did precisely what they always accuse Democrat judges of doing (playing politics with their ruling.)

Quoting uncle ebeneezer: Bob, thank you so much for this:

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/199...4:33&out=15:22

It drives me nuts when wingnuts throw around the "activist judges" charges and scream bloody murder about "empathy" and strict adherence to the Constitution, when in the BIGGEST ruling of my lifetime, all their boys did precisely what they always accuse Democrat judges of doing (playing politics with their ruling.)

And how. After Bush v. Gore "activist judges" only sounds like "I'm bullshitting you!"

I'm pretty sure there's enough evidence to keep KSM behind bars for something. I'd bet he's a tax evader. The only people who'd we'd let off are the rabble at the bottom of the org chart, and we've (Bush actually) already let hundreds of them go. I see Obama's problem. There is a big gap between the plain old law and the law of war. If the baddies at Gitmo were regular soldiers we'd keep them as POWs (name, rank, and serial number) and keep 'em till the peace treaty is signed. That's not going to happen. The Bush approach was to say, "Anything goes!" Obama's trying to form a legal process with judicial branch checking executive power. That's better, but it still stinks. Anti-terror laws can turn you into a banana republic, what with the star chambers and preventive detention and whatnot. If I've learned anything from watching "Law and Order" it's that prosecutors are gonna abuse that power and go after non-terrorists like filesharing sites. I'm looking forward to the whole terror deal dying down. We're out of Saudi Arabia (the original complaint!), we're getting out of Iraq, and we'd be happy to get

I'm no lawyer, but does international law really allow for people to be held permanently based on the independent claim of a single country without the support of any evidence or even charges? Again I am no expert, but I doubt it. If so I disagree with this notion, and I'd be interested in seeing the specific wording. I don't see the point of an international legal framework that relies solely the independent assessment of the parties involved. On a more principled level, the mere claim that these aren't "normal" criminals does not mean the government should be allowed to hold them without evidence or charges, even if we found them in a foreign country. What if foreign government thought someone in your family was an abnormal criminal and refused to show any evidence or give them a chance to defend themselves? Would you support their right to hold them forever without trial?

Yes. POWs may be held for the duration of a war. No serious evidence is required other than that they were wearing a uniform on the battlefield. The process to determine this is informal, as well. The detainees are also not "criminals", they're enemy noncombatants or whatever it is the Obama administration is calling them. Furthermore, piracy law allows for the countries that detain the pirates to have exclusive jurisdiction over the pirates. The laws of war also give exclusive jurisdiction over POWs to the country that has captured them. Lastly international law doesn't mean international parties are involved in the legal process, it mostly tries to guide nation-states (who have jurisdiction over the individual or matter) as to what they can do and/or not do.

"If God does not exist, everything is permitted." I don't understand how Kaus doesn't see the connection between atheism and the death of objective morality. If we are simply atoms bouncing around, morality loses all objectivity.

From the Amazon page for the book:

and he runs www.BloggingHeads.com, a rapidly growing Web site for intellectual discourse.

Here I was just about to pat us all on the back for helping to rapidly grow this site when I noticed that the website is wrong. It's .TV not .COM. Bob, you probably wanna get somebody on this before the rapid growth begins to be retarded by people going to the wrong site. Also, is there anywhere where we can see info on the assumed book-tour for EOG when it is released? Throw us a bone, Bob.

Welcome to 2009: http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/199...2:58&out=73:02

Quoting uncle ebeneezer: From the Amazon page for the book:

Here I was just about to pat us all on the back for helping to rapidly grow this site when I noticed that the website is wrong. It's .TV not .COM. Bob, you probably wanna get somebody on this before the rapid growth begins to be retarded by people going to the wrong site.

It's not the end of the world. The .com address redirects to the .tv one. Try it: http://www.bloggingheads.com/ But as far as brand identity goes, it should be fixed.

Yeah, I figured that about the re-direct, but still... I'm just happy that now if somebody Googles "Uncle Ebeneezer intellectual discourse" there will finally be a result!

Releasing someone who may be guilty but it could not be proven in a court of law equals releasing convicted rapists?
No one objects to releasing convicted rapists.
Well when someone objects they are called racists by progressives.
See Willie Horton.
No doubt someone will use the quoted out of context defense.

Quoting uncle ebeneezer: I'm just happy that now if somebody Googles "Uncle Ebeneezer intellectual discourse" there will finally be a result!

Sadly ...

While I totally agree with Bob about the absurdity of the notion that we cannot keep terrorists safely locked away in U.S. prisons and while I was astonished when big, brave Viet Nam vet Jim Webb seemed to be taking that sort of position, I do disagree with Bob's position that every single member of al Qaeda that we capture should be tried in our courts and released if we fail to convict him. That makes me think of OJ. And, also, I think the notion of holding prisoners of war until the war is over is a power that should be applied in the case of some of the al Qaeda leaders.
If we were to capture Dr. Zawahiri (sp?) or Osama Bin Laden, I don't think there is any scenario in which we should blithely release them.
I recall there being terrorists like Abu Nidal and some other fellow whose name I forget (started with an M?) who continued to be dangerous while they were free and alive and I think Obama is correct to reserve the option on some of these guys to treat them differently.
I'm not articulating

These people were not found on the battlefield and they are not prisoners of war. Bush was very clear about that so he could avoid international laws that protect the rights of POWs. However, you cannot have your cake and eat it to. Claiming that the whole world is America's battlefield undermines the spirit of the laws surrounding POWs. The Geneva Conventions deliberately restricts countries from just taking prisoners all over the world and claiming they are prisoners of war, hence the "combat zone" language. This is still a a lot of freedom for countries at war to detain who they want. The enacted protections for POWs exist in part because we grant such freedom to nations in detaining prisoners of war. If we want to take advantage of the leeway provided in international law to apprehend and hold these people as POWs, we must also follow the protections they are granted by the Geneva Conventions or go against international laws. These laws include: "No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from

huh? uh....morality is based on our evolutionary traits which, in turn, religion was based on. there's no evidence for god whether you believe in it or not, anyway. furthermore, there is no objective morality - we just have to make it up. if there were an objective morality then how would you know which one it is, which should be chosen and why would we choose a religion? even if we did choose a religion why would we choose christianity over hinduism, etc? is your god more right than someone elses? even though there's zero evidence for both?

Like a measurement that collapses the wave function, now I officially exist! "1" is the loneliest number...

As far as "objective morality" I've never understood how there is any other kind.

Bob, you can't say that terrorism shuts other people's thinking down while you're simultaneously saying ludicrous things like people don't complains about sex offenders moving into their neighborhood. You seriously get more worked up than anyone on BH about terrorism so there's not a lot of room to throw stones here.

I wonder if someone who has read Nonzero can answer a question I have always had about the game theory at its roots. I get the impression that Bob's essential argument is that as technological capacity increases, the species as a whole essentially becomes a single de facto evolutionary entity and so massive cooperation (or even some kind of collective technological communion) inevitably becomes the only evolutionary alternative to extinction. Given his attachment to teleological framings of this idea, I have the impression that Bob sees this concept as universally (or cosmically) relevant. But doesn't the whole system assume the close genetic relationship of all the sentient technology-using players involved? That they are all of the same species? Put another way, if Neanderthals as a distinct intelligent species had continued to develop along with homo sapiens all the way into the 21st Century- couldn't a fundamentally zero sum logic still then apply because even genetic survival could still easily be a matter of "us vs. them?" In fact, since some, like Jared Diamond, see violent (and tool assisted) conflict with humans as the probable cause of Neanderthals' extinction, couldn't some kind of teleological

Well international law isn't clear as to enemy noncombatants. It is clear about POWs. They can be detained indefinitely. There is no written law on terrorists (there's not even an internationally recognized legal definition for terrorist or terrorism). So a priori if POWs can be detained indefinitely, so can enemy noncombatants. The Obama administration may just give them POW status and not make an a priori argument. However, I think an argument of greater justification can be made for terrorists since they are effectively more dangerous than lawful combatants, i.e., if it is acceptable to detain lawful combatants indefinitely, it should be acceptable to indefinitely detain non-lawful combatants as well. If I were you I'd pay attention to what the Obama administration does. They aren't criminal defense lawyers arguing what is right by criminal defendants. They will make a case, based on what international law there is and adopt a lawful policy that protects American interests. Milosevic was not a terrorist or enemy noncombatant. He was a state leader accused of genocide and was given up by Serbia to an international body. That has nothing whatsoever to do with the detainees

Oh God, is Spitzer rehabilitated? I don't think so. Am I the only one who reads his column for the prostitute feeling? Anyone? Ok.

Pampl, I think Bob's point is that there are always potential risks to releasing any criminal from imprisonment. As a society we have decided over the years that it is not an absolute binary situation and that we have accepted a certain amount of risks in order to hold true to our ideals of justice. While there will always be concern by local areas of released rapists/murderers, there is no major movement arguing that we should imprison people forever. Our country has adopted a policy of trying to find a proper balance between potential risk and fidelity to our ideals of justice. But as soon as terrorism is raised, the hawk side pushes the argument that it is irresponsible for anyone to consider the balance, and they fail to admit that this is a decision that happens all the time in situations with criminals that we don't label "terrorists."

Quoting geoffrobinson: "If God does not exist, everything is permitted."

I don't understand how Kaus doesn't see the connection between atheism and the death of objective morality. If we are simply atoms bouncing around, morality loses all objectivity.

I don't see the connection. I come from non-religious family where even my grandparents didn't attend any type of religious services. Yet, we were taught right from wrong. John

The idea is not that atheists can't know what is right or wrong or practice right or wrong, but that right and wrong have cannot be objectively true unless God exists to ground their truth. I'm not saying I agree with the idea, just trying to clarify what it is.

Quoting Bobby G: The idea is not that atheists can't know what is right or wrong or practice right or wrong, but that right and wrong have cannot be objectively true unless God exists to ground their truth. I'm not saying I agree with the idea, just trying to clarify what it is.

Yes, I know the idea but I don't think it applies to all people. Woody Allen's movie "Crimes and Misdeameanors" was all about this concept. In Los Angeles there is a talk show host, Dennis Prager, who talks about this at least once a week. If religion works for someone fine: I am pro-choice in all matters theological. John

Quoting uncle ebeneezer: Pampl, I think Bob's point is that there are always potential risks to releasing any criminal from imprisonment. As a society we have decided over the years that it is not an absolute binary situation and that we have accepted a certain amount of risks in order to hold true to our ideals of justice. While there will always be concern by local areas of released rapists/murderers, there is no major movement arguing that we should imprison people forever. Our country has adopted a policy of trying to find a proper balance between potential risk and fidelity to our ideals of justice. But as soon as terrorism is raised, the hawk side pushes the argument that it is irresponsible for anyone to consider the balance, and they fail to admit that this is a decision that happens all the time in situations with criminals that we don't label "terrorists."

My view of the politics of criminal justice is much more pessimistic than yours. I suspect if murder and rape were federal crimes instead of local you'd see the movement you describe. Sentencing times

There's nothing as valuable as a .com domain. It's the first thing people try if they can't remember. I wouldn't worry about .com as a branding problem. As an aside, www.bloggingdead.com is available, if anyone wants to snap it up.

Quoting Malthust: I wonder if someone who has read Nonzero can answer a question ...

... doesn't the whole system assume the close genetic relationship of all the sentient technology-using players involved?

... genetic survival could still easily be a matter of "us vs. them?"

... the simultaneous existence of two or more intelligent species on a given planet would destroy the underlying game theory logic of the whole argument.

Interesting question. I don't claim to speak for Nonzero, but let me throw out some ideas. You put a lot of stress on genetics at a time when many seers are predicting we will soon transcend our genes due to (1) an increased appreciation of ideas (memes) over genes, and (2) and increased ability to directly manipulate genes (design your offspring). Also, it doesn't have to be a fight to the death, even if one species is more advanced than the other. Consider bears: they have some intelligence, they are unfriendly, and they bite. Over the last few hundred years we have become more powerful than bears. We now have the technology to eradicate all of the bears from the face of the earth. Yet we don't. Why not? I wonder if

Quoting Simon Willard: There's nothing as valuable as a .com domain. It's the first thing people try if they can't remember. I wouldn't worry about .com as a branding problem.

I didn't mean it was a problem, just that things (like names) should be right.

As an aside, www.bloggingdead.com is available, if anyone wants to snap it up.

Huh. Hard to believe one of Jerry's Kids hasn't snapped that up. (No, the other one.)

Hmm. I don't think you've understood my point, or I haven't presented it as I meant to, or both. The point is this: (1) Our moral beliefs are either true or false.
(2) If they're true, it's because some intention/willing/or disposition of God's made them true.
(3.1) God's willings/intentions/dispositions would make our moral beliefs true regardless of whether anyone believed in God.
(3.2) God's willings/intentions/dispositions would make our moral beliefs true regardless of whether atheists behaved morally better or worse than non-atheists.
(3.3) And finally, God's willings/intentions/dispositions would make our moral beliefs true regardless of whether believing or disbelieving in God "worked" for anyone or not.

This is crazy talk. There is such a thing as Econ 101, supply-and-demand, and all that, Bob tried to bring that up but he didn't do it effectively. A free-market would ration health-care through prices and the innovations would be financed by the rich who would get more experimental health-care and hence also bear more of the burden since research shows that half of all health-care is bad for you. At the other end of the spectrum there's socialized medicine. Here there are no prices, so rationing is done through waiting-lines, inefficiencies, delays, or simply through anti-innovating attitudes. So it's the exact opposite of what Mickey is saying. The argument that some people make is that the inefficiency and anti-innovation attitude of the centralized solution would actually be good because it would help cutting back the 50% of bad health-care that we are currently enduring (Not that I agree with this argument).

Quoting aurora: Releasing KSM would certainly be distasteful, but the odds of him engaging in serious terrorist activities seem fairly slim. After Bin Laden, he would be the most famous terrorist in the world. Who, in their right mind, would dare collaborate with someone that recognizable who practically every major intelligence service in the world would be trying to track? How many terrorists would trust him after years in the hands of the US and after the US—very counter-intuitively—released him of its own free will? You'd be far far safer just plotting your terrorist act as far away from this man as possible. He's too high-profile and too potentially compromised. What could he possibly have to offer than could outweigh these enormous negatives?

This is madness, whether or not terrorists may or may not collaborate with KSM is not the point. You do not free a man who is a known terrorist responsible for the deaths, executions, and VIDEOTAPED sawed off beheading torture of a man because evidence is shaky in terms of US criminal standards for US citizenry. Nor need we extend the full weight of our citizen laws to protect such a

Except that the super max facilities to house them don't exist, without displacing some of the bad guys that are currently held there. So the will have to spend 100's of millions to create the facilities that we just spent 100's of millions creating in Guantanamo. Makes perfect sense in a world where money grows on trees but the only thing were growing right now is debt. But what is a couple more hundred million when it's all on the credit card.

True, true... but having to pay for it is not much of a barrier to housing them in the United States.

Why isn't anyone talking about the Pot Chocolates or Pot Ice-Cream?

This is the first time I've commented without viewing the entire video. Let me relay a conversation to you guys. Keep in mind that I'm a nearly middle-aged yuppie libertarian and my buddy is a true blue yuppie liberal who works for a southern state government. This occurred around lunchtime a couple years ago: Buddy: Guess what the hell I just did.
Me: Wasted taxpayer money on useless b.s.?
Buddy: Well kinda, I just graded essays for [really easy entry-level job test].
Me: Isn't that a test [college grads only] just to weed out f-ups and idiots?
Buddy: Yea.
Me: So why isn't it multiple choice?
Buddy: Apparently [an African-American group] sued on behalf of those that failed, so they have 8 department supervisors grading essays.
Me: I thought everyone passed this thing, why is nobody calling b.s.?
Buddy: This is the weird thing: there's a black male and black female who are grading these things and both nodded approvingly when told of the situation.
Me: I've heard of a lot of AA b.s. but this is like letting 1000 SAT's into Harvard.
Buddy: It's at least that bad. A good high school student could easily pass. This immediately popped into my head when I heard Mickey justify Sotomayor's decision with his crazy ass hypotheticals about a new firefighter (FIREFIGHTER!) test

Quoting JonIrenicus: This is madness, whether or not terrorists may or may not collaborate with KSM is not the point. You do not free a man who is a known terrorist responsible for the deaths, executions, and VIDEOTAPED sawed off beheading torture of a man because evidence is shaky in terms of US criminal standards for US citizenry.

Remember that Bob's hypothetical release of KSM was conditioned on our not having the evidence to convict. Insofar as we have all the evidence you describe, no one here is advocating KSM's release. So you're arguing with a straw man. ETA: The point is that if we have videotape of him beheading someone, then the evidence isn't "shaky in terms of US criminal standards for US citizenry".

Quoting Tyrrell McAllister: Remember that Bob's hypothetical release of KSM was conditioned on our not having the evidence to convict. Insofar as we have all the evidence you describe, no one here is advocating KSM's release. So you're arguing with a straw man.

ETA: The point is that if we have videotape of him beheading someone, then the evidence isn't "shaky in terms of US criminal standards for US citizenry".

But there is the rub, to what bar are we to hold the prosecutions to? our criminal standards? Or merely say civil standards? They are not the same even for US citizens, the burden of proof is higher in criminal courts. By his own admission, a legal technicality that would result in an obviously guilty man to go free under our criminal laws should be transplanted for the suspected terrorists benefit. Such generosity. But why should the exact same legal standards apply? Why should the exact same bars be met?
First, the burden of proof for prosecutions ought to be lower, not equal to, or higher than that required for US citizens. Second, to the extent we have strong reason to believe such detainees are a continued threat to the nation, we

Quoting piscivorous: Except that the super max facilities to house them don't exist, without displacing some of the bad guys that are currently held there. So the will have to spend 100's of millions to create the facilities that we just spent 100's of millions creating in Guantanamo. Makes perfect sense in a world where money grows on trees but the only thing were growing right now is debt. But what is a couple more hundred million when it's all on the credit card.

Wow, hundreds of millions to house a few hundred guys. Ok... Its a pretty ugly argument, too: "It's too expensive for us as a nation to adhere to our constitutional principles, so... who needs principles?"

It's not that the supermax prisons can't hold them, they can if we spend enough (I think CA is approaching $50k per inmate, and plenty of them are foreign nationals bringing crime and/or terror to the Golden State). But the problem is that bringing terrorists onto US soil means they can be defended to the max by liberal lawyers, insuring that some will be released......where? not back to where they came from, but probably with a nice setlement to get them started spouting hatred for the west in the mosque of their choice. And a supreme court nominee who rules against plaintiffs based on the color of their skin......but if you hold her to her record you are an anti-hispanic racist (Mickey should know all about this double-standard). There is no better proof of the msm being almost completely liberal than the fact that if Roberts or Alito had uttered her curious statement that one race made 'better' decisions than another they'd have been hounded (rightly) not only from their nominations but their judicial positions. Change you can believe in!

Quoting harkin: It's not that the supermax prisons can't hold them, they can if we spend enough (I think CA is approaching $50k per inmate, and plenty of them are foreign nationals bringing crime and/or terror to the Golden State). But the problem is that bringing terrorists onto US soil means they can be defended to the max by liberal lawyers, insuring that some will be released......where? not back to where they came from, but probably with a nice setlement to get them started spouting hatred for the west in the mosque of their choice.

And a supreme court nominee who rules against plaintiffs based on the color of their skin......but if you hold her to her record you are an anti-hispanic racist (Mickey should know all about this double-standard). There is no better proof of the msm being almost completely liberal than the fact that if Roberts or Alito had uttered her curious statement that one race made 'better' decisions than another they'd have been hounded (rightly) not only from their nominations but their judicial positions.

Change you can believe in!

Oh, snap! Those awful brown people bringing

I've lost track of whether you're arguing from the point of view of a belief system in the abstract, or if this is something you yourself believe, but ...

Quoting Bobby G: Hmm. I don't think you've understood my point, or I haven't presented it as I meant to, or both. The point is this:

(1) Our moral beliefs are either true or false.

... couldn't it also be true that our moral beliefs are neither true nor false? Couldn't it also be the case that they are an amalgamation of guidelines (or imperatives, if you like) that have their roots in some combination of our biology, what we've figured out over the millenia to keep a society harmonious, and some third category that I'll loosely call our ability to think of abstractions like "equal in the eyes of the law?" That is, I do not think our moral beliefs are true, say, in the way the "the speed of light in a vacuum is constant" is true. I would go along with saying many of the obvious examples one could list related to moral behavior are so nearly universally held that they amount to being true for all practical

Quoting AemJeff: Oh, snap! Those awful brown people bringing crime and terror and (shudder) Liberal Judges(!) to the homeland. If a lawyer can get somebody off, then wouldn't it follow that the law wasn't followed? Aren't we a nation of laws? or are we moral cowards who apply our principles only when it's safe and convenient?

Speaking of snap.....lol......nice to see you project racism into my statement when none was stated or inferred. I will leave it to you to explain why being brown (I am mixed race, btw) is 'awful'. This is the same dishonest tactic that will be employed by supporters of Sotomayor towards anyone who seeks to hold her to her words. Nice to see BHTV one-up the msm and their ability to employ the word 'attack' into any criticism of SS by using 'trashes' to describe Rosen's piece. I guess the entire democratic party 'trashed' John Roberts and Sam Alito for records far superior to Ms Sotomayor's. Watch what happens if any of the republicans employ Barack Obama's own standard of voting against a nominee he disagrees with 5% of the time. And where were the democrats who honored and appreciated a person of

Quoting Bobby G: Hmm. I don't think you've understood my point, or I haven't presented it as I meant to, or both. The point is this:

(1) Our moral beliefs are either true or false.
(2) If they're true, it's because some intention/willing/or disposition of God's made them true.
(3.1) God's willings/intentions/dispositions would make our moral beliefs true regardless of whether anyone believed in God.
(3.2) God's willings/intentions/dispositions would make our moral beliefs true regardless of whether atheists behaved morally better or worse than non-atheists.
(3.3) And finally, God's willings/intentions/dispositions would make our moral beliefs true regardless of whether believing or disbelieving in God "worked" for anyone or not.

Can one not make the claim for moral reality without bring God into the picture? I'm no philosopher, but I'm pretty sure Bloggin' Noggin' could make the case.

Quoting harkin: Speaking of snap.....lol......nice to see you project racism into my statement when none was stated or inferred. I will leave it to you to explain why being brown (I am mixed race, btw) is 'awful'. This is the same dishonest tactic that will be employed by supporters of Sotomayor towards anyone who seeks to hold her to her words. Nice to see BHTV one-up the msm and their ability to employ the word 'attack' into any criticism of SS by using 'trashes' to describe Rosen's piece.

I guess the entire democratic party 'trashed' John Roberts and Sam Alito for records far superior to Ms Sotomayor's. Watch what happens if any of the republicans employ Barack Obama's own standard of voting against a nominee he disagrees with 5% of the time.

And where were the democrats who honored and appreciated a person of color and the vast experience of growing up in poverty when Clarence Thomas received his high-tech lynching?

Regarding terrorrists, as far as I know we did not apply these principals to foreign combatants during WW2 and that seemed to work out OK. And if you apply US law to foreign combatants, I guess

Quoting geoffrobinson: "If God does not exist, everything is permitted."

I don't understand how Kaus doesn't see the connection between atheism and the death of objective morality. If we are simply atoms bouncing around, morality loses all objectivity.

If we are simply atoms bouncing around, judicial objectivity becomes a hundred times more important than in a universe where God is going to enforce some kind of order, regardless of what we do to each other. As to Bob's sense that there's increased cynicism in the last 100 years: I believe it's a byproduct of a society where the boundaries between your group and mine are increasingly thin. People pick religions, Obama picked his racial orientation, I think people somewhat pick their sexual orientation, and there's no longer this sense that we all live in demographic isolation from each other. So the competition to convert and combat is simply a lot higher today than it was a hundred years ago. Blurry boundaries lead to symbolic fights as each group tries to define itself more sharply -- witness the current intramural GOP debating.

Quoting harkin: But the problem is that bringing terrorists onto US soil means they can be defended to the max by liberal lawyers, insuring that some will be released......where?

Harkin, an honest question (i.e. answer carefully because I'm about to score easy points): What alternative do you propose? Should we continue to operate extra-national jails where we hold people forever without even a military tribunal?

Note to Bob, I'm not 'trashing' you when I disagree, I don't think that most of the people 'on the right' (as you call them) who do disagree with you are 'trashing' you, they are disagreeing with you. With that said, on one hand you promote applying US law to the Guantanamo terrorists and yet you seem to ridicule one of the criteria used to describe released terrorists as returning to terror being 'associating with other terrorists'. I do hope you realize that associating with criminals and/or other released criminals is a violation of parole for US ex-cons and would normally result in their being returned to prison. If you don't believe that associating with like-minded criminals leads to much higher likelihood of recidivism I suggest you study crime statistics. On a side note, Wonderment was looking for a person comparable to Ghandi and MLK recently (he came to the brilliant conclusion that The One wasn't it). With Bob's ability to turn the other cheek and release SKM (maybe all that evidence really did belong to his roommate!) and others, I see a possibility.....

Quoting AemJeff: Frankly I don't care what your race is. As long as you make arguments

Quoting John Randoe: If you want to do this at the DMV fine, but I'd like someone who can pass a firefighter test (FIREFIGHTER TEST FFS) to hold the hose at my house.

In keeping with the cynicism theme of the diavlog: Why does anyone think it's credible to make hiring decisions for firefighters based on testing of any kind? This worship of testing and standards (it seems pretty obvious that acing this test is not remotely predictive of being an amazing firefighter) is part of the problem. A guy who scores 100 probably won't make a better firefighter than a guy who scores 80%, so why do we accept this reliance on 'scientific' and 'unbiased' testing? It only seems to complicate hiring. I'm perfectly happy letting C+ firefighters put my house out. It's a dangerous job that I respect, but no one would be harmed by letting the supervisors simply appoint captains based on job performance like in every job in the world.

Quoting harkin: Note to Bob, I'm not 'trashing' you when I disagree, I don't think that most of the people 'on the right' (as you call them) who do disagree with you are 'trashing' you, they are disagreeing with you.

With that said, on one hand you promote applying US law to the Guantanamo terrorists and yet you seem to ridicule one of the criteria used to describe released terrorists as returning to terror being 'associating with other terrorists'.

I do hope you realize that associating with criminals and/or other released criminals is a violation of parole for US ex-cons and would normally result in their being returned to prison. If you don't believe that associating with like-minded criminals leads to much higher likelihood of recidivism I suggest you study crime statistics.

On a side note, Wonderment was looking for a person comparable to Ghandi and MLK recently (he came to the brilliant conclusion that The One wasn't it). With Bob's ability to turn the other cheek and release SKM (maybe all that evidence really did belong to his roommate!) and others, I see a possibility.....

Awesome, race matters when you seek to paint me as a racist, and yet

Quoting DoctorMoney: I'm perfectly happy letting C+ firefighters put my house out. It's a dangerous job that I respect, but no one would be harmed by letting the supervisors simply appoint captains based on job performance like in every job in the world.

Well the argument against is that for decades the supervisors promoted firefighters -most likely competent, if not the best- that looked exactly like (including funky moustaches) and shared similar surnames and ethnic origins as themselves.

I see that Robert has a problem with releasing rapists around his daughters. I agree. However, I would bet big money he knows no one in uniform. We already know that many of these guys who were released are back on the battlefield (I think the recividist rate is approx 7%). As a retired soldier, who has been in Iraq and Afghanistan in uniform, I dont want these Guantanamo guys back on the battlefield. I KNOW who is out there fighting and you would just release them? I would assume that it would not bother Robert to allow the authorities to release all the rapists in his state in his neighborhood, next to his daughters and wife? I am wondering where the empathy for those out there on the battlefield is? Tell me Robert if that poor analogy makes you rethink your point. If not, how would you feel if there was a draft and your daughters/son were out there? I would bet that your particular viewpoint on this point would be more "empathetic" to the Soldiers/Marines on the battlefield.

Quoting joetheragman: I see that Robert has a problem with releasing rapists around his daughters. I agree. However, I would bet big money he knows no one in uniform.

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Bob was an army brat.

If one defines morality as accordance with the will of a god, then things are moral if they are in accordance. The argument is simply tautology, no?

Quoting Tyrrell McAllister: I wouldn't be so sure about that. Bob was an army brat.

Yep. He's sung the praises of the Army as well:

If all of America were more like the Army, it would be a better country.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...pagewanted=all You got to watch it with the free-floating bigotry.

Oh sure, one could do that. I'm extremely pessimistic about doing that so successfully convince most rational people that you are correct, though (and that includes, of course, any reference to God as well).

They're both great! CA may be a complete clusterfuck, but at least we got medicinal marijuana right.

The argument would indeed be a tautology if one did that. That doesn't affect my main point, which is just to explain to bjkazfan what I was talking about. Nevertheless, your question is a good one, and I should direct some energy to it. Unless one takes Don Loeb's view (a former blogginghead) that there is no category, "morality", then what you can do is this: start by analyzing what "morality" refers to. Then you can start asking yourself, "what best explains what could ground 'morality'?" Then you might end up getting to "the commands of a loving God". Let me be a bit more specific: (1) Moral claims are usually taken to be ones that are universal (apply to all people in relevantly similar situations) and overriding (they are supposed to outweigh our self-interest--so, even if doing the morally right thing would make you unhappy, you're still supposed to do it). Moreover, moral claims are supposed to have to do with primarily with action--they concern how you are supposed to conduct yourself. Finally, moral claims (and this is most controversial) have to do with giving reasons to others for why you or they have to do

I can relate to Bob's frustration (I share it). His point, and what is so frustrating is the fact that many people have such an emotional response to the word "terrorism" that they suddenly drop all previous considerations of risk/justice balance. I can't point to any particular study (though I bet a study would reinforce my instinct) but I see it all the time. Even when you give an analogy that has a similiar risk, it seems that the mere use of the word "terrorist" is so loaded that it changes the very prism through which most humans view the questions and decisions and threats of criminal activity. Just look at how eager the GOP was to try to associate Obama with "palling around with 'terrorists'". Palling around with "60's revolutionaries, or anti-war radicals" doesn't strike nearly the emotional response. Our legal system has always had a built-in element of risk in that we don't simply hold everyone in prison forever. We let people go after carefull consideration of many factors, including how "dangerous" they might be. But the GOP likes to somehow insinuate otherwise by condemning anybody who suggests that we let potentially

Quoting bjkeefe: I've lost track of whether you're arguing from the point of view of a belief system in the abstract, or if this is something you yourself believe, but ...

Right. I don't think I believe this, but I think it's got more going for it than most people think.

... couldn't it also be true that our moral beliefs are neither true nor false? Couldn't it also be the case that they are an amalgamation of guidelines (or imperatives, if you like) that have their roots in some combination of our biology, what we've figured out over the millenia to keep a society harmonious, and some third category that I'll loosely call our ability to think of abstractions like "equal in the eyes of the law?"

Certainly, the origin of our moral beliefs could be explained in this way. But just because they are explained in this way doesn't mean that they aren't true or false. (After all, many of our non-moral beliefs can be explained in this way, too, but that doesn't make them neither true nor false.) Going on, if moral beliefs originated in order to keep a society harmonious, you might conclude

Thank you for making that point that wars and conflicts are not really about religion! It's so obvious, but people just glom onto that notion completely uncritically, even though they themselves can't imagine a religious war in which they would participate.

Quoting Bobby G: Just because moral principles haven't remained constant doesn't make them neither true nor false. Certainly most of our scientific and religious beliefs have been inconstantly held over the millenia, but it would be wrong to conclude from this that they are neither true nor false.

(Added: I've reviewed what you said and I am now unsure, from the piling up of negatives, what you might mean. The following was written under the initial understanding that you are saying that moral beliefs can be true or false despite their lack of consistency over time, because scientific beliefs have changed over time.) Argh. I can't accept any of this at all. To take your latter claim first: of course we believe (outmoded) scientific beliefs are false. We would now say these statements are false, among many others: The Earth is at the center of the Universe. The Earth is about 6000 years old. Organic material rots because of spontaneous generation of mold and maggots. It is possible to construct a perpetual motion device. The atom is the smallest unit of matter. There is no such thing as antimatter. If you cut off an animal's tail, offspring from that

Quoting JuliaInIA: Thank you for making that point that wars and conflicts are not really about religion! It's so obvious, but people just glom onto that notion completely uncritically, even though they themselves can't imagine a religious war in which they would participate.

I once read a line somewhere -- possibly in To Say Nothing of the Dog -- that went something like this: People say religion is the cause of wars and much other violence. That is incorrect. Religion is not the reason. It is the excuse. I'm not sure I completely buy this, but I find it a very useful statement to keep in mind.

When I examine my moral intuitions I find something more consistent with evolutionary psychology. It seems to me that we find "murder for fun" wrong when it violates a trust that is essential for cooperation/altruism. We understand biologically -- at least insofar as close kin are concerned -- that the more we promote qualities like empathy, nurturing and kindness over cruelty and indifference the more likely we will cooperate and succeed biologically. This doesn't really make it "true" that "killing [our guys] for fun is wrong," but it gives the assertion more power psychologically than claims that do not violate the biological imperatives of fairness, cooperation and inclusion. When we generalize about morality we are extending the cooperative rules that apply to kin. As world civilization becomes more sophisticated and less racist, sexist and xenophobic, we're starting to extend these principles to all of humanity and even beyond to other sentient beings. People, of course, also have the option to exclude someone from the human "family" at any point. Men do take pleasure in violence (a kind of killing for fun) as long as the victim is an outsider. Any examination of the literature (and

Instead of just talking about Frazier, can we see him onscreen please? Thank you.

Ahh yes. I happened to read this thread in pieces as various posts were added and in doing so sort of lost the, well, overall thread so to speak. Having gone back to the starting point as you indicated I take your point that the theistic explaination for prescriptive morality exists and agree with you about what it claims. I do agree however with other posters in this thread that people can be serious about prescriptive morality and use other bases, filling in item 3 in your list with other sources for moral judgments. I have also come to hold that descriptive morality, i.e. that which describes the moral practices most people actually adhere to is emotively based, including an amalgam of internalized cultural, intellectual, and probably evolutionary influences and that the assignment of prescriptive sources to moral judgements often tends to be heavily weighted toward rationalization of immediate impulses, but that is another discussion altogether and not one to waste time on here or to derail the existing discussion with.

You mean like renditions, permanent incarcerations, military tribunals ... all things candidate Obama decried but President Obama have fully endorsed. so we will just throw a couple hundred million down the tube and then a couple more hundred million to replicate what we already have in Cuba. Yea that makes a lot of sense for a rhetorical feel good moment while keeping the sum and substance of President Bush's policies. Haven't you guys figured out yet that candidate Obama has morphed into President Bush the III, so why spent the money when what we have is sufficient to do what needs to be done.

Quoting DoctorMoney: I'm perfectly happy letting C+ firefighters put my house out. It's a dangerous job that I respect, but no one would be harmed by letting the supervisors simply appoint captains based on job performance like in every job in the world.

First, on-the-job performance is a prerequisite for the test; it's not a substitute. Second, It's simply not true that every other job hires based solely on job performance. The military requires paper tests for landmark promotions. So do the police. Plenty of engineering jobs require a PE license, lawyers pass the BAR, CPA's, Cisco technicians, etc. Also, I'm a chemical engineer and am required to periodically pass a basic test on fire science. It can actually get fairly complicated. Add to that the knowledge required to coordinate with city, county, state, and federal agencies, and it seems really freaking obvious that there has to be some formal way, paper or otherwise, to make sure candidates did the rote memorization part of the job. And what graz said.

Perception. Symbolism. I know what you're saying, but complaining about the cost of moving these prisoners around is not a serious issue particularly when it's peanuts in the budget.

Quoting piscivorous: You mean like renditions, permanent incarcerations, military tribunals ... all things candidate Obama decried but President Obama have fully endorsed. so we will just throw a couple hundred million down the tube and then a couple more hundred million to replicate what we already have in Cuba. Yea that makes a lot of sense for a rhetorical feel good moment while keeping the sum and substance of President Bush's policies. Haven't you guys figured out yet that candidate Obama has morphed into President Bush the III, so why spent the money when what we have is sufficient to do what needs to be done.

Please explain to me what any of this has to do with what I posted.

Perhaps if we started paying attention to the millions we might not be running a deficit in the trillions of dollars. But then again I am from a generation, were many, practiced the age old adage of a penny saved is a penny earned.

Great points. I'm not sure that I am accurately representing Nonzero, but my impression is that genetics is central to the thesis because the drift toward sentient intelligence (defined roughly as the ability to adaptively respond to novel suboptimal environmental conditions using technology???) and then toward cooperative behaviors are both seen as inevitable teleological outcomes of biological evolution left running long enough.
Your comment about gene manipulation has actually unnerved me just a bit, because I can think of no better analogy for the anthropological relationship between homo sapiens and Neanderthals than modern humans and something like Ray Kurzweil's dream (or Fukuyama's nightmare) of genetically-modified transhumans. The whole Nonzero thesis seems to posit a long evolutionary crescendo toward a mutually assured destruction scenario where conflict within the species threatens the actual biological survival of the species as a whole and collective behaviors become an unavoidable evoultionary outcome. Sentient species inevitably become their own worst genetic threat and must transition toward collectivism to survive. So "God," through the teleological logic embedded in evolution, has designed a program that, running long enough, will generate a Noosphere. Perhaps not

I'm quite sure that if you don't have the wit to figure it out my expounding upon the matter will be waste of time and effort so due the best you can to see where a hundred million here a hundred million there and pretty soon were talking about real money.

Seen the green glowing monkeys yet.

Yes, and the "talking" mice.

Quoting bjkeefe: I once read a line somewhere -- possibly in To Say Nothing of the Dog -- that went something like this: People say religion is the cause of wars and much other violence. That is incorrect. Religion is not the reason. It is the excuse.

I'm not sure I completely buy this, but I find it a very useful statement to keep in mind.

Pat Condell's newest reminds me of why I hedged.

Yeah, our government doesn't work the way an individual or family works. I'm with you though, our debt is an abomination... however, fighting the costs of upgrading a prison pale in comparison to other spending issues. It's also part of the ongoing fight against militant Islam and we really can't cut corners on it, I'd say.

People say religion is the cause of wars and much other violence. That is incorrect. Religion is not the reason. It is the excuse.

I'm not sure I completely buy this, but I find it a very useful statement to keep in mind.

With the caveat that I have no idea what Mickey and Bob talked about, I would say that the link between violence and religion is more complex. Much of modern warfare is justified by a hodgepodge of religion, nationalism, secular morality, pragmatism, pursuit of resources and territory, ethnocentrism, perceived victimhood, ideology, militarism and biological drives (the testosterone brew) we barely understand. I could deconstruct the Israeli-Palestinian conflict or the US War on Iraq by emphasizing or de-emphasizing any of the above factors. We probably get a better handle on war and other forms of group violence (gang fights, chimps-on-chimp attacks, etc.) by focusing on xenophobia, which may or may not be based on religion, but is always based on us-them differences.

I don't buy Bob's argument at all on his new book.
But I'll buy it to see if he can enlighten me or change my mind.

Quoting Wonderment: ....I would say that the link between violence and religion is more complex. Much of modern warfare is justified by a hodgepodge of religion, nationalism, secular morality, pragmatism, pursuit of resources and territory, ethnocentrism, perceived victimhood, ideology, militarism and biological drives (the testosterone brew) we barely understand....We probably get a better handle on war and other forms of group violence (gang fights, chimps-on-chimp attacks, etc.) by focusing on xenophobia, which may or may not be based on religion, but is always based on us-them differences.

If you believe the data Wrangham cites, one could well conclude that violence requires no reason. Everything in that list: "religion, nationalism, secular morality, pragmatism, pursuit of resources and territory, ethnocentrism, perceived victimhood, ideology, militarism and biological drives" is really just an excuse. That said, I agree that xenophobia is the closest thing we may get to a reason, because I believe xenophobia is bred in the bones and must be unlearned. And unfortunately, the unlearning generally must take place on a case by case basis and is subject to sudden reversal. I think it would be interesting to explore kin selection and xenophobia from a chicken/egg perspective. Are they 2 sides of the same coin, or is one the inevitable result of the other and

Quoting bjkeefe: Pat Condell's newest reminds me of why I hedged.

Thanks for the link. Very enjoyable!

Are they 2 sides of the same coin, or is one the inevitable result of the other and if so, which came first?

I think they are complementary features of one phenomenon that we can observe developing up evolutionary lines -- the territorial imperative.

Patriarchal societies have traditionally required their female offspring to go and live with the families of their spouses, which has probably led to less innate xenophobia in females given the need to assimilate with strangers.

There are significant differences in this regard among our closest relatives (chimps and bonobos). The more matriarchal bonobos do a better job of reining in male violence. Of course, they have polymorphous sex ALL THE TIME, which helps tamp down the aggression, promotes reconciliation and strengthens enduring bonds. I have always thought that male adolescent aggression is THE key to world peace among humans, but it's not that simple. MAV has lots of "enablers" throughout the social structure, including women. Having said that, it would be great to ban men from political office and solve world peace overnight by decree Since that will never happen, we're probably doomed. Richard Wrangham is far more optimistic than I am.

I think a chemical engineer makes a really bad analogy for firefighting. If so many people want in on the firefighting gig that we're culling candidates for nearly nonsensical reasons (and I'd argue that testing in this case is nonsensical), maybe it just pays too well for what it is. And thinking that testing is objective whereas interviews and performance reviews are subjective is just totally wrong in my opinion. It's all subjective, and the testing is a fig leaf meant to pass off hiring problems onto the taxpayer rather than having elected officials remain accountable. And for what it's worth, I have zero confidence that there's any correlation between top scorers and top job performance. You're testing motivation, not aptitude. You might as well use a tarot deck at that point.

Quoting graz: Well the argument against is that for decades the supervisors promoted firefighters -most likely competent, if not the best- that looked exactly like (including funky moustaches) and shared similar surnames and ethnic origins as themselves.

Around these parts, that is still largely true. I guess that's part of my reaction -- that testing and standards have essentially been used to perpetuate that system and to throw voters off the scent. I can see having a firefighter test that is pass/fail, so to speak. But ranking a hundred people based on a knowledge quiz? That's nutty on the face of it. The guy who scores 100% is no different than the guy who scores 94 or 89 unless you've got some real geniuses devising the testing. Which they absolutely aren't. We wildly overestimate the granularity with which we can test people. Which is why you end up with a guy who scored a hundred and feels that he deserves the job and is the best applicant when neither is necessarily true.

Quoting Wonderment: There are significant differences in this regard among our closest relatives (chimps and bonobos). The more matriarchal bonobos do a better job of reining in male violence. Of course, they have polymorphous sex ALL THE TIME, which helps tamp down the aggression, promotes reconciliation and strengthens enduring bonds.

The sex stuff isn't actually how bonobos operate in the wild and the "reining in male violence" isn't even true in captivity. Groups of females gnaw off the digits of isolated males and, on at least two occasions, zookeepers. The myth surrounding bonobos reminds me of the myth surrounding Minoa- the ideological purpose it was originally invented for seems attractive, but ultimately descends into inanity and insanity. Also like the Minoan myths, the bonobo myths all came from the pen of one guy and have been steadily disproven by follow-up research done by other scientists.

Quoting DoctorMoney: I can see having a firefighter test that is pass/fail, so to speak. But ranking a hundred people based on a knowledge quiz? That's nutty on the face of it. The guy who scores 100% is no different than the guy who scores 94 or 89 unless you've got some real geniuses devising the testing. Which they absolutely aren't.

I don't think it was for ranking, was it? IIRC the problem was that no black firefighters made it above the cut-off point for qualifying for promotion.

Quoting pampl: I don't think it was for ranking, was it? IIRC the problem was that no black firefighters made it above the cut-off point for qualifying for promotion.

The aggrieved white guy subsequently went out and bought a thousand dollars worth of tutoring for the test and aced it, arguing that since he was the top scorer among all those who took it that time around, he was being treated unfairly. It's that culture of ranking that causes the problem here. I have failed to get countless jobs and promotions, but I've never had some arbitrary number staring me in the face telling me that I deserved it more than the next guy. I test pretty well, so maybe I should be wishing for it. But taking tests is its own skill set and it's obvious why most companies don't allow some numerical score to determine who gets promoted and who doesn't. They're looking to avoid lawsuits and hurt feelings. So why isn't the fire department smart enough to do the same?

Quoting DoctorMoney: We wildly overestimate the granularity with which we can test people.

A very true statement, with much wider applicability than just this instance.

The aggrieved guy was and is dyslexic. The thousand dollars he spent went mostly to people reading the material onto tape so he could study it orally. What was it the Senator Kerry said about studying hard and getting ahead! Perhaps some of the minority candidates should have taken preparation somewhat more seriously and the would have scored above the cut-off point. If I was cynical I would probably add something like perhaps they didn't feel the need to prepare because they figured the quota system stacked things in their favor thus they saw no need to prepare properly by putting in the effort the Ricci did.

Quoting piscivorous: If I was cynical I would probably add something like perhaps ...

What you are is a coward. Have the guts to own your own opinions. Or better yet, since even you know how offensive they are, keep them to yourself.

It's alright for others here to question the motives, of the aggrieved party, but not of the minority candidates, that obviously didn't put in the effort required to score well enough on the test to qualify for promotion. Dry your crying towel and man up.

Quoting piscivorous: It's alright for others here to question the motives, of the aggrieved party, but not of the minority candidates, that obviously didn't put in the effort required to score well enough on the test to qualify for promotion. Dry your crying towel and man up.

The only one crying is you, because you know you got busted.

Are you saying that within the human race, whether their skin be black, brown, pink or whatever, there isn’t a share of crooks, cons, charlatans and just lazy no goods. I’m almost certain that you would concur that there is a percentage, of humans, that are capable of abusing, exploiting or taking unfair advantage of any system that confers an advantage to the select group to which that advantage accrues. As minorities are a subset of humanity it follows that that there are members of any minority community that has adapted in part if not in full the philosophy of get what I got coming from this quota gravy train. Given this I would appreciate it if you could inform me of what exactly I have been busted for. Stating the obvious?

Quoting piscivorous: Are you saying [blah blah blah -- pisc goes on forever trying to change the subject] ...

Quoting piscivorous: Given this I would appreciate it if you could inform me of what exactly I have been busted for. Stating the obvious?

Can you even read? Or have you already forgotten? I'm not going to bother arguing with a racist who protests about being called a racist. But what I busted you for was trying to hide your racist statements behind weasel words.

Easier to shout racist and declare victory right as the "wise Latino women", and BJ too, all know that anyone that sees discriminatory preference laws as replacing one injustice with another injustice has to be racist.

Quoting piscivorous: Easier to shout racist and declare victory right as the "wise Latino women", and BJ too, all know that anyone that sees discriminatory preference laws as replacing one injustice with another injustice has to be racist.

Hey, no weasel words this time! Progress!

As you have once again come into a comment chain only to directly attack and insult me would you mind publishing your specific list of "weasel" words so that I and everyone else will know what vocabulary is acceptable to you so as not to provoke insult and slander. And if that is all you wish to do please come up with some now ones as your one liners are getting boring from repetition.

Quoting piscivorous: ... would you mind publishing your specific list of "weasel" words ...

Request denied. I will call them when I see them.

Quoting piscivorous: ... your one liners are getting boring from repetition.

Funny how they remain interesting enough to keep you reading and responding to them, isn't it?

Well this will be the lat time I reply to your trolling. Feel free to continue it though for it shows how really shallow and petty you can be.

Quoting piscivorous: Well this will be the lat time I reply to your trolling. Feel free to continue it though for it shows how really shallow and petty you can be.

Did you mean "last time?" Or did you intentionally misspell last so that you will be able to weasel out of it (in your own mind) when I point back to this post the next time you start whimpering at being called out for what you are? Yes, I can be shallow and petty. I find that works best when dealing with people like you. I gave up on the possibility that you could understand reasoning or nuance, or acknowledge facts, long ago. I have learned from experience that whenever you're treated as an adult, you inevitably show why that level of respect is unmerited. So, keep posting your snippy little racist asides, your narrow-minded bitterness, and the other wingnut talking points you pick up from Rush and Fox News and Michelle Malkin, and I'll keep drifting down to your level to respond to them.

bj, It's cowardly to casually call someone a racist and not be able back up the statement. Take back your comment or explain yourself.

Via PowerLine From the same Judge Sotomayor speech that is currently being critiqued.

Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect the facts that judges choose to see. My hope is that I will take the good from my experiences and extrapolate them further into areas with which I am unfamiliar. I simply do not know exactly what that difference will be in my judging. But I accept there will be some based on my gender and my Latina heritage.

(my bold) I didn't know it was within a judges prerogative to only pay attention to a subset of the facts. To me this is more troubling than her offhand racist remarks. (edited for clarification)

Enh... this isn't much to hang one's hat on. This is what judges do. They all judge from their own perspective of what the law is, etc... Nothing really scary there. What this should do is provide for some interesting talk/debate during her hearing if there are some Republican congressmen or even Democrat congressmen who feel like they can tackle this speech with her. They should find out what she really thinks and have her try to explain her remark. What's interesting, if she becomes a Justice, is her record shows that she has a "conservative" streak and will likely vote with the "conservatives" on the bench on some issues. She's apparently not solidly pro-choice, and she's been pro-police a few times as well. I've also read she's a bit of a federalist. What I like about her, even if I profoundly disagree with her on some issues, is that she appears to have has a strong legal voice and the Supreme Court needs strong voices. Maybe she's a racist or sexist, who knows... but if she truly is those views will be countered by others on the court and her ideas on

Quoting piscivorous: Via PowerLine From the same Judge Sotomayor speech that is currently being critiqued. (my bold) I didn't know it was within a judges prerogative to only pay attention to a subset of the facts. To me this is more troubling than her offhand racist remarks.

(edited for clarification)

Despite your wingnut paranoia and the panting eagerness with which you cherry-pick the words that will most appeal to your fears, you should be happy that she is aware enough of her own human limitations to acknowledge them out loud. You should also explain why you are not troubled by previous nominees to the Supreme Court who said this:

"Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging."

Or this:

"I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt . . . continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies, and prejudices are appropriate."

Or this:

"[W]hen I get a case about discrimination, I have to think about people in my own family who suffered discrimination because of their ethnic

Quoting piscivorous: ... her offhand racist remarks.

And while we're playing guess the source of the quote, who said this?

Some, and they are idiots, look at Judge Sotomayor and say: attack, attack, kill.

How does it feel to be called an idiot by a former Special Assistant to Ronald Reagan?

Quoting Lyle: bj,

It's cowardly to casually call someone a racist and not be able back up the statement. Take back your comment or explain yourself.

Meh. You've got enough trouble keeping your own feet out of your own mouth without trying to stand up for a racist loser like piscivorous. Besides, it's a waste of time. I already said I'm not going to waste the time explaining to a racist why he's a racist. Accept that or don't; I could not care less.

Quoting bjkeefe: Meh.

You've got enough trouble keeping your own feet out of your own mouth without trying to stand up for a racist loser like piscivorous. Besides, it's a waste of time. I already said I'm not going to waste the time explaining to a racist why he's a racist. Accept that or don't; I could not care less.

dude you get so angry about comments...maybe you should step back, get some therapy, pay a hooker to sleep with you, whatever it takes...you're too mad about life edit: also you must have 10,000 comments here...seriously, it would be easier on you if you spent at least one hour of your free time doing something normal instead of posting here non-stop bob wright, perform an intervention on this sad sack...send him a crate of bananas or something

Quoting Username: dude you get so angry about comments...maybe you should step back, get some therapy, pay a hooker to sleep with you, whatever it takes...you're too mad about life

When I want shit from you, Lusername, I'll squeeze your head.

Quoting bjkeefe: When I want shit from you, Lusername, I'll squeeze your head.

lol how did I know you would be reading this forum at this hour YOU WON'T LIKE ME WHEN I'M ANGRY --bjkeefe 24x7

Quoting Username: lol how did I know you would be reading this forum at this hour

So, what, your hope was that you could sneak a comment in and hope that I wouldn't see it? You're as gutless as the rest of the wingnuts that pollute this board.

Quoting Username: [...]

I see we have another clown who edits his posts after they've already been replied to. Classy.

Quoting bjkeefe: So, what, your hope was that you could sneak a comment in and hope that I wouldn't see it?

You're as gutless as the rest of the wingnuts that pollute this board.

holy shit dude, read your own posts LISTEN BUDDY I REPLY TO ANY AND ALL COMMENTS THAT ANGER ME it has been awhile since I have seen such a cut and dried case of forums nutjob ARGH WINGNUTS THAT POLLUTE THIS BOARD time for some netkook nominations :-)

Quoting bjkeefe: I see we have another clown who edits his posts after they've already been replied to.

Classy.

someone edited a comment to add something to it? NOT ON MY FORUMS >:-[]

Quoting Username: holy shit dude, read your own posts

LISTEN BUDDY I REPLY TO ANY AND ALL COMMENTS THAT ANGER ME

it has been awhile since I have seen such a cut and dried case of forums nutjob

ARGH WINGNUTS THAT POLLUTE THIS BOARD

time for some netkook nominations :-)

I presume you'll be starting with yourself, being as you are own of those twerps laboring under the delusion that typing in all caps makes his points more convincing.

Quoting bjkeefe: I presume you'll be starting with yourself, being as you are own of those twerps laboring under the delusion that typing in all caps makes his points more convincing.

LOOK HERE THESE ARE MY FORUMS BUCKO YOU'LL FOLLOW MY RULES OR BE CALLED A TWERP BY SOMEONE FAR AWAY WHO ISN'T ENTIRELY SANE

bjkeeve...bloggingheads super poster...10,000 replies defending his e-honor

No judges don't get yo choose what subset of facts they see, they get to weight the facts and their relevance but their decision should account for all the facts not just the ones a judge empathizes with. Ones life history and experiences will play a role in this ranking and I don't have a problem with that reality. It is very likely that if Mr. Gibbs is queried about this particular quote he would no doubt respond that “I think she’d say her word choice in 2001 was poor,...” With that I would have to agree if that is all the there there; but the issue needs to be fleshed out not blithely dismissed out of hand as seems to be the want of some.

You asked, and I will deliver, as promised.

Quoting piscivorous: ... as seems to be the want of some.

Weasel words.

Quoting piscivorous: No judges don't get yo choose what subset of facts they see, they get to weight the facts and their relevance but their decision should account for all the facts not just the ones a judge empathizes with. Ones life history and experiences will play a role in this ranking and I don't have a problem with that reality. It is very likely that if Mr. Gibbs is queried about this particular quote he would no doubt respond that “I think she’d say her word choice in 2001 was poor,...” With that I would have to agree if that is all the there there; but the issue needs to be fleshed out not blithely dismissed out of hand as seems to be the want of some.

You're probably going to have to choose whether to argue justice should be blind and ignore some characteristics of cases or that justice should see everything and take it all into consideration. Flip flopping between the two is sort of incoherent.

As I have previously stated don't think that Judge Sotomayor is racist. I also do not believe that one need be a racist to in make a racists remark. I have seen the video of her full remaks, I believe it is on CSPAN but I am not that interested in running it down again so for those that would like to get the full context of the remarks by seeing them; CSPAN is where to look I believe. I suppose that one could interpret an attack on a remark as an attack on the remarker but that requires applying your own set of biases to impute intent or motive. Since I am not really motivated in contradicting myself, in the monumental time span of a couple of hours reflection, I think perhaps you should reevaluate your bias, at least in this matter. I posted this earlier, but forgot to add the link to the article so I am redoing it here. I believe it is helpful in getting a better understanding of Judge Sotomayor's real record. SCOUTSBLOG.

Quoting pampl: You're probably going to have to choose whether to argue justice should be blind and ignore some characteristics of cases or that justice should see everything and take it all into consideration. Flip flopping between the two is sort of incoherent.

No I think that is carrying the cargo past the destination it was bound for. I recognize that there will be times in cases where not all issues can be resolved by a mere review and study of the facts and arguments as presented by the two side. There will be cases where there are ambiguities and seeming contradiction in fact or law, that will lead to using ones legal experiences and life experiences in coming to a judgment.

Quoting piscivorous: I also do not believe that one need be a racist to in make a racists remark.

Quoting piscivorous: I suppose that one could interpret an attack on a remark as an attack on the remarker but that requires applying your own set of biases to impute intent or motive. Since I am not really motivated in contradicting myself, in the monumental time span of a couple of hours reflection, I think perhaps you should reevaluate your bias, at least in this matter.

There is something to this. In principle, I agree: a single racist remark does not guarantee the person who said it is a racist. However, after one hears (reads) a number of racist remarks made by the same person over a period of years and in the context of many different events, combined with a larger amount of excessive complaining about reverse racism, favoritism, preferences, affirmative action, what have you, one arrives at a state where one is doing more than "imput[ing] intent or motive." One has instead arrived at a position of making a considered judgment based on substantial evidence. Yes, I do have my biases, and if you haven't already figured this out, one of the

There ought to be a word for the right-wing cryptoracist asshole deal. You know, not shouting the n-word anymore, but always quick to whine about "political correctness," affirmative action, etc, but never a word for actual racism. It's pretty damned transparent. It's not fooling anyone. There ought to be a word for it. I think "racist" will have to do.

Quoting piscivorous: No I think that is carrying the cargo past the destination it was bound for. I recognize that there will be times in cases where not all issues can be resolved by a mere review and study of the facts and arguments as presented by the two side. There will be cases where there are ambiguities and seeming contradiction in fact or law, that will lead to using ones legal experiences and life experiences in coming to a judgment.

I had thought this was inconsistent with your previous position but looking back over the comments I must have been confusing you with someone else. All the same, I think the tension between the two positions is why you won't see that issue "fleshed out". The right wants to complain about empathy and life experiences and the left wants to defend Sotomayor from the right so there's no one to nitpick that statement. Speaking of nitpicking,

Quoting piscivorous: I posted this earlier, but forgot to add the link to the article so I am redoing it here. I believe it is helpful in getting a better understanding of Judge Sotomayor's real record. SCOUTSBLOG.

It's

Well given her gender I suppose that that is self evident. P.S. Given your nitpick, and you are not the first to point out similar nitpicks, might provide more insight into why I empathize with Ricci than looking for a racial explanation.

Bob is exactly right!!! I could not believe our cowardly leaders voted not to house those terrorists in the US. How wimpy ARE we? There was at least one brave man in Montana who lobbied the feds to house them in his town. I can't remember if he was a sheriff or a mayor or what, but he is the lone man in all of this. Bob is the one to advocate for a position of progress here.

Quoting willmybasilgrow: Bob is exactly right!!! I could not believe our cowardly leaders voted not to house those terrorists in the US. How wimpy ARE we?

Exactly right. I expect such nonsense from the Republican Party these days, under the "Obama proposed it so we oppose it" mindlessness rule, but that vote was the most craven act by the Democrats in Congress since they rolled over for Bush in 2002. And it's not even an election year, damn it. An absolute disgrace. We should stop calling them "leaders" right the fuck now. As far as I'm concerned, the terrorists have already one. I hope they had the good sense to fund the building of the worldwide caliphate by investing in Depends.

Quoting claymisher: There ought to be a word for the right-wing cryptoracist asshole deal. You know, not shouting the n-word anymore, but always quick to whine about "political correctness," affirmative action, etc, but never a word for actual racism. It's pretty damned transparent. It's not fooling anyone.

There ought to be a word for it. I think "racist" will have to do.

How about calling them sailers?

The Uighurs -- innocent people -- have been sitting in Gitmo for years. They continue to sit because Obama won't set them free.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Obama administration asked the Supreme Court to reject an appeal by Chinese Muslim dissidents who want to be brought to the United States after their release from Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The Justice Department, in its filing Friday, urged the high court to refuse to review a Circuit Court decision overturning a lower court which had ordered the Uighurs brought to Washington, D.C. and immediately set free.

The dispute has become a central issue in President Obama's promise to close Guantanamo Bay Naval Base prison by January 2010.

All sides are agreed the Uighurs, who seek independence from China for their Turkic Muslim region, cannot be returned to China because they would face severe punishment or death. However, no other nation has been willing to accept them, in part because it would anger Chinese authorities.

Congressional Republicans insist that bringing them to the United States represents a potential danger to the communities where they would be settled, because their history includes training in al Qaeda camps

Quoting piscivorous: Well given her gender I suppose that that is self evident.

P.S. Given your nitpick, and you are not the first to point out similar nitpicks, might provide more insight into why I empathize with Ricci than looking for a racial explanation.

I don't know what your first sentence is responding to and I can't understand the grammar in your second sentence. Could you clarify?

Well said Bob.
Terrorism relies on terrorists being able to sustain their "anger" against western values or policies and deep principles of Justice should most definitely outweigh simplistic security concerns. How does KSM convince a roomful of future terrorists to sacrifice their lives in anger when he himself has become a shining example of western principles of justice in action even when it was especially and obviously difficult to let these principles hold sway. There is a healthy respect for principles of justice in Islam and even some terrorists, in their heart of hearts as they contemplate the prospect of death, would surely suspect that the rationale behind their homicidal movement is faulty. It is ironic that the word "jihad" actually means "struggle" and alludes to the difficulty of abiding by deep principles. So Mickey's jihad is to understand why Bob is wright regarding the gitmo prisoners. Haha. To undermine terrorism, the west needs to dismantle and undermine the distortions of Islam that terrorists depend on in acquiring converts to their cause like the meaning of "jihad" and not provide them with blatantly selective application

Quoting pampl: It's SCOTUSBLOG.

Speaking of which, Tom Goldstein, founder of SCOTUSblog, is interviewed in the first segment of this week's On The Media. (Whole show here.)

There are no females in the Scouts so she couldn't very well have been nominated for Eagle Scout. Gold Star Girl Scout perhaps. Ricci is a dyslexic. I can empathize with that.

* Reading and spelling

* Spelling errors — Because of difficulty learning letter-sound correspondences, individuals with dyslexia might tend to misspell words, or leave vowels out of words.
* Letter order - People with dyslexia may also reverse the order of two letters especially when the final, incorrect, word looks similar to the intended word (e.g., spelling "dose" instead of "does").
* Letter addition/subtraction - People with dyslexia may perceive a word with letters added, subtracted, or repeated. This can lead to confusion between two words containing most of the same letters.
* Highly phoneticized spelling - People with dyslexia also commonly spell words inconsistently, but in a highly phonetic form such as writing "shud" for "should". Dyslexic individuals also typically have difficulty distinguishing among homophones such as "their" and "there".
* Vocabulary - Having a small written vocabulary, even if they have a large spoken vocabulary.

Quoting piscivorous: There are no females in the Scouts so she couldn't very well have been nominated for Eagle Scout. Gold Star Girl Scout perhaps.

Ricci is a dyslexic. I can empathize with that.

Now that you have come "clean" and shared your story, it won't be as much fun to pick nits. And I always thought that your misspelling was deliberate so as not to raise any doubts that you weren't a liberal elitist, practiced in good grammar and spelling. I have a soft spot in my heart for you, but it's easily tempered by your global warming denial, racialist grievances and your ability to see most problems as nothing that a military solution can't fix.

Quoting graz: Now that you have come "clean" and shared your story, it won't be as much fun to pick nits. And I always thought that your misspelling was deliberate so as not to raise any doubts that you weren't a liberal elitist, practiced in good grammar and spelling.

Good grammar and spelling are are unimportant to me.

Quoting graz: I have a soft spot in my heart for you, but it's easily tempered by your global warming denial, racialist grievances and your ability to see most problems as nothing that a military solution can't fix.

I don't deny that the glob has warmed I contest the causation; for which I ware the garb of heresy with pride. I realize that my race neutral views, are portrayed by some here on the left as being racist. In reality is that it is those that support laws, rules and regulations promoting one race over another, in my opinion, are the ones practicing racism. The quota system died in Gratz v. Bollinger and is the first ring in the death knell of racial preferences. Yes I subscribe to the simpleton solution. They threaten we destroy end of problem. P.S. feel free to continue to nitpick. I get

Quoting Malthust:
But doesn't the whole system assume the close genetic relationship of all the sentient technology-using players involved? That they are all of the same species?

I don't think cooperation here requires genetic relation. A symbiotic relationship could exist wherein the fortunes of one group depended on the fortunes of another group, and promoting the interests of the other was beneficial overall, regardless of relation. Just as in game theory there are situations which necessitate cooperation between individuals, there will be situations which necessitate cooperation between groups. Whether these groups are two groups within the same species, or two different species, the game theory calculation will still be made on the same basis of interests, abilities, and psychology. Perhaps the two species will be very different, but just as with individuals with highly different desires and mindsets, cooperation can be the best realistic solution. Here are two examples to illustrate: Ex. 1: As a thought experiment, you could imagine a race of intelligent robots that depended on humans for maintenance and survival, and which could only get those by winning the goodwill of humans; the humans in turn could benefit from the robots and choose

Sorry, I hadn't seen the longer thread. Here are more thoughts.... Couldn't you substitute human groups for species in your thinking and come to the same conclusions, replacing xenocide with genocide? I think an assumption in Nonzero is that we can't eliminate the other side, without destroying the human race, while in your example, one species can destroy the other and survive. If two groups of humans each have the ability to destroy each other, and will survive a first strike, then a MAD situation emerges, and cooperation is the only solution. If two species have the same abilities, then the solution should be the same. Part of "human nonzero" is that attacking one side can create a series of reprisals resulting in species-wide destruction, including environmental destruction. Perhaps two species might be freer to destroy the other if they had different ecological needs. However the more different their needs, the less they are competitors, and the less need to destroy each other, right? The "nonzero" situation is that in which each side is vulnerable to the actions of the other side. If one side could develop defenses, and eliminate the other side with impunity, the old zero-sum situation would

I don't have time to respond to this right now--I already just wrote a long post to Stargazer--but the basic idea is that you and Wonderment are just giving explanations of where moral beliefs come from. You don't explain how they can have any normative force. In other words, you say that we believe killing the innocent is wrong because it works to our reproductive and cultural advantage to believe that. That is probably true, but if someone doesn't care about his offspring, or his culture, etc., then he has no reason to care about murdering people. And I assume you and Wonderment would agree with that: if someone doesn't care about others, then all that we can say is that we think what he's doing is wrong, but we don't really have any reason that would appeal to him, and since we don't have any reason that would appeal to him, there's nothing more for us to say to him, and we can't even say he's making a mistake. (For instance, if someone really, really liked murder, and didn't care at all about others' feelings and didn't so much care if he

Quoting Bobby G: I don't have time to respond to this right now--I already just wrote a long post to Stargazer--but the basic idea is that you and Wonderment are just giving explanations of where moral beliefs come from. You don't explain how they can have any normative force.

Been a while since I've thought about this thread, so all I can say is I'm not sure why we're required to. It suffices, to my mind, to make the observations that what works works.

In other words, you say that we believe killing the innocent is wrong because it works to our reproductive and cultural advantage to believe that. That is probably true, but if someone doesn't care about his offspring, or his culture, etc., then he has no reason to care about murdering people. And I assume you and Wonderment would agree with that: if someone doesn't care about others, then all that we can say is that we think what he's doing is wrong, but we don't really have any reason that would appeal to him, and since we don't have any reason that would appeal to him, there's nothing more for us to

Sure, all that stuff works, but when I tell someone S that he's wrong, I'm doing a lot more than telling S that his actions don't match up with his desires. Moreover, I'm telling S more than that his desires or actions don't match up with my desires or actions. In some cases, at least, I'm telling him he shouldn't have the desires he has, even if he fully endorses those desires. Of course, my telling him that will not usually do anything to convince him of that. (Though this is not always the case; I think Martin Luther King, Jr., Ghandi, and others managed to convince people both through reasoning and through their personal example to change their ways.) But convincing someone to change their ways isn't the only thing that matters. It also matters that he's got reality wrong.

Quoting Bobby G: [...]

Noted.

No government is letting go of its only war loot for the sake of justice. Especially when your country is bankrupt and the only thing you have to show after the death of thousands of soldiers is a few prisoners. Maybe there ought to be a national banana hand out that would fix serotonin levels in this place and boost self-assurance.

i guess they're already here:
http://www.newsweek.com//frameset.as...d%2F2219268%2F

I don't even know if we can attribute positive/negative results to most economic policies, as the system is so complex, and the data resolution so poor, I am not sure even experts can weed out the causations from the correlations. If we had two teams about to face off in a seven game series, and we were supplied the information that one team should win 66% of the series, we would have to watch those two teams play a whole 23 series for us to be wrong less then 1/20 times we picked which team was favored beforehand. If the initial percentage was only 55%, it would take 263 series! Considering how much data we need to be "mostly sure" about the simple situation above, I have a hard time believing anyone has any real idea about all these Macroeconomic decisions. Might as well just play dice with China.

Quoting Starwatcher162536: I don't even know if we can attribute positive/negative results to most economic policies, as the system is so complex, and the data resolution so poor, I am not sure even experts can weed out the causations from the correlations.

If we had two teams about to face off in a seven game series, and we were supplied the information that one team should win 66% of the series, we would have to watch those two teams play a whole 23 series for us to be wrong less then 1/20 times we picked which team was favored beforehand. If the initial percentage was only 55%, it would take 263 series!

Considering how much data we need to be "mostly sure" about the simple situation above, I have a hard time believing anyone has any real idea about all these Macroeconomic decisions.

Might as well just play dice with China.

Great point!

I guess I should mention that my view on this does not mean I am against regulation overall. I just think the very question of whether we will be better off with or without X regulation is a very hard question to answer with any authority.