It is official: Obama lied about his torture investigations

[Patrick Degan]

And as far as Bakukstra's attempt to limit the definition of Appeal to Consequences as merely applying to beliefs, the judgement of Lord Denning rejecting the appeal of the conviction of six Irish men for allegedly bombing a pub in Birmingham, England in 1974, brought by falsified evidence and police perjury, outlines the negative form (if P then Q would occur, Q is undesirable therefore P is false) of appeal ad consequentum as applied to the real world in detail:

Just consider the course of events if their [the Six's] action were to proceed to trial ... If the six men failed it would mean that much time and money and worry would have been expended by many people to no good purpose. If they won, it would mean that the police were guilty of perjury; that they were guilty of violence and threats; that the confessions were involuntary and improperly admitted in evidence; and that the convictions were erroneous. That would mean that the Home Secretary would have either to recommend that they be pardoned or to remit the case to the Court of Appeal. That was such an appalling vista that every sensible person would say, 'It cannot be right that these actions should go any further.' They should be struck out either on the ground that the men are stopped from challenging the decision of Mr. Justice Bridge, or alternatively that it is an abuse of the process of the court. Whichever it is, the actions should be stopped.

[Winston Blake]

Much as other people doubt that the prosecutions would create significant unrest, I doubt that the US will collapse in the long-term either. It's been 49 years since the French police gunned down peaceful protesters in Paris itself, and during the course of the Algerian war, the French tortured hundreds of thousands of people. Nobody ever saw a day in jail or a franc in fines for these crimes. General amnesties were issued. But France, whatever you may think of it today, has not seen the destruction of its governmental systems or any of the potential long-term consequences, nor is it a torturing nation today. The US committed many atrocities in the Philippines at the start of the last century, and nobody ever saw punishment for that, either. It took a general ordering the killing of all Filipino boys and men over the age of ten on Samar for there to even be a trial (though not for war crimes), but all he got was retirement. The US committed a number of war crimes for fruit, of all things, in the 1910s and 1920s.

I'm reluctant to engage you since you're busy talking to other people, so I will keep this nice and short.

I wasn't claiming that letting war crimes go unpunished would cause the U.S. to collapse or cause its destruction, so these examples are irrelevant. 'Check and balances' can be destroyed without actual state collapse - it would merely result in a government like that of many third world governments, or like modern Russia.

France and the US really WERE repulsive countries back when they pulled off all that horrible shit. The fact that you don't care about slipping back into that is bizarre to me. If the US pulled off a new Trail of Tears, would you just say 'well shucks, guys, this has happened before, no need to get your panties in a twist'.

Prosecuting our war criminals is a recent phenomenon and mostly has resulted, like with My Lai and Abu Ghraib, in scapegoats being tried to quash any sense that there might have been policies in place to encourage such crimes. While I would love to see justice done, don't pretend that this is some sort of aberration. Even back then the populace was split between support and dissent, though now at least it favors dissent more that support. Frankly, if letting war criminals go dooms us, then we were damned from the beginning of the 20th Century.

Bolding mine. Also irrelevant - I wasn't pretending it's an aberration. A big injustice shouldn't have to be unusual to be considered something which must be righted - being a big injustice is enough.

I think I can boil my feelings down to this: America used to suck, America got better, now America has a choice: be a sucky country again, or own up to its shit and show it can still be trusted.

[Bakustra]

And as far as Bakukstra's attempt to limit the definition of Appeal to Consequences as merely applying to beliefs, the judgement of Lord Denning rejecting the appeal of the conviction of six Irish men for allegedly bombing a pub in Birmingham, England in 1974, brought by falsified evidence and police perjury, outlines the negative form (if P then Q would occur, Q is undesirable therefore P is false) of appeal ad consequentum as applied to the real world in detail:

Just consider the course of events if their [the Six's] action were to proceed to trial ... If the six men failed it would mean that much time and money and worry would have been expended by many people to no good purpose. If they won, it would mean that the police were guilty of perjury; that they were guilty of violence and threats; that the confessions were involuntary and improperly admitted in evidence; and that the convictions were erroneous. That would mean that the Home Secretary would have either to recommend that they be pardoned or to remit the case to the Court of Appeal. That was such an appalling vista that every sensible person would say, 'It cannot be right that these actions should go any further.' They should be struck out either on the ground that the men are stopped from challenging the decision of Mr. Justice Bridge, or alternatively that it is an abuse of the process of the court. Whichever it is, the actions should be stopped.

That's not what I said, you blithering idiot. That is referring to the truth-value as well. He's saying that they should be considered guilty because the options are worse, which is exactly consistent with my post, as it renders a truth-value on their guilt because of the potential consequences. My position is that people will refrain from such because of the consequences, but the guilt or innocence is independent of that. You throw lots of accusations of fallacy around, but you don't seem to know what they actually mean, so doing so does not make you look any smarter or more experienced.

Much as other people doubt that the prosecutions would create significant unrest, I doubt that the US will collapse in the long-term either. It's been 49 years since the French police gunned down peaceful protesters in Paris itself, and during the course of the Algerian war, the French tortured hundreds of thousands of people. Nobody ever saw a day in jail or a franc in fines for these crimes. General amnesties were issued. But France, whatever you may think of it today, has not seen the destruction of its governmental systems or any of the potential long-term consequences, nor is it a torturing nation today. The US committed many atrocities in the Philippines at the start of the last century, and nobody ever saw punishment for that, either. It took a general ordering the killing of all Filipino boys and men over the age of ten on Samar for there to even be a trial (though not for war crimes), but all he got was retirement. The US committed a number of war crimes for fruit, of all things, in the 1910s and 1920s.

I'm reluctant to engage you since you're busy talking to other people, so I will keep this nice and short.

I wasn't claiming that letting war crimes go unpunished would cause the U.S. to collapse or cause its destruction, so these examples are irrelevant. 'Check and balances' can be destroyed without actual state collapse - it would merely result in a government like that of many third world governments, or like modern Russia.

France and the US really WERE repulsive countries back when they pulled off all that horrible shit. The fact that you don't care about slipping back into that is bizarre to me. If the US pulled off a new Trail of Tears, would you just say 'well shucks, guys, this has happened before, no need to get your panties in a twist'.

Prosecuting our war criminals is a recent phenomenon and mostly has resulted, like with My Lai and Abu Ghraib, in scapegoats being tried to quash any sense that there might have been policies in place to encourage such crimes. While I would love to see justice done, don't pretend that this is some sort of aberration. Even back then the populace was split between support and dissent, though now at least it favors dissent more that support. Frankly, if letting war criminals go dooms us, then we were damned from the beginning of the 20th Century.

Bolding mine. Also irrelevant - I wasn't pretending it's an aberration. A big injustice shouldn't have to be unusual to be considered something which must be righted - being a big injustice is enough.

I think I can boil my feelings down to this: America used to suck, America got better, now America has a choice: be a sucky country again, or own up to its shit and show it can still be trusted.

No, no, I actually enjoy this. But the problem is that the US and France did those things and then improved, so I am reluctant to assign a sort of long-term degeneracy of government as a likely consequence. In other words, historical experience has suggested that nations can and do get better from committing horrific crimes.

The problem of expansion of political power on behalf of the executive, which is a real threat (and I think that people are conflating it with the war crimes), is distinct from the question of war crimes. But that itself is something that I do believe can and should be fought and would not create unrest if it were broken, since it doesn't create the same problems. Now, the fundamental problems that lead to the shift of political power in favor of the executive are not likely to be addressed, but they're distinct from the war crimes as well, though I fear unlikely to get fixed in my lifetime.

I think that it would be ideal if there were prosecutions, but I don't think that America can be trusted, nor should it be, frankly.

[Zaune]

I wasn't envisioning a second civil war, more like a period of riots at worst, probably more like the highly polarised atmosphere of the American Civil Rights Movement or Red Scare. I admit it's possible things could get so bad that the truth gets buried by the 'winners' of an actual war, but outside America, history could record the truth. Even if something like that broke out, which seems very far-fetched, Germany and Japan recovered quite well from far worse situations. They became prosperous, democratic, and well-respected within a few decades. If Germany and Japan had insisted they were right all along and pretended they did nothing wrong, what kind of ostracised mess would they be in today? Or consider that Post-Soviet Russia was certainly a much bigger mess than this situation could possibly cause, but things 'got better'.

If this was purely about the political side of the chain of command that might be true, but the armed forces are going to have to clean house as well, at every level of the chain of command. I don't buy into the claims about how soldiers are dehumanised and "trained to kill" until they can't tell right from wrong, but I can see how a large number of their comrades in arms being court-martialled for mistreating a bunch of insurgents would leave Afghanistan and Iraq veterans with conflicted loyalties.

And don't take this the wrong way, but the fact that the USA would almost certainly get over even the worst-case scenario in the long run is going to be cold comfort to the victims of the short-to-medium term consequences.

[Patrick Degan]

And as far as Bakukstra's attempt to limit the definition of Appeal to Consequences as merely applying to beliefs, the judgement of Lord Denning rejecting the appeal of the conviction of six Irish men for allegedly bombing a pub in Birmingham, England in 1974, brought by falsified evidence and police perjury, outlines the negative form (if P then Q would occur, Q is undesirable therefore P is false) of appeal ad consequentum as applied to the real world in detail:

Just consider the course of events if their [the Six's] action were to proceed to trial ... If the six men failed it would mean that much time and money and worry would have been expended by many people to no good purpose. If they won, it would mean that the police were guilty of perjury; that they were guilty of violence and threats; that the confessions were involuntary and improperly admitted in evidence; and that the convictions were erroneous. That would mean that the Home Secretary would have either to recommend that they be pardoned or to remit the case to the Court of Appeal. That was such an appalling vista that every sensible person would say, 'It cannot be right that these actions should go any further.' They should be struck out either on the ground that the men are stopped from challenging the decision of Mr. Justice Bridge, or alternatively that it is an abuse of the process of the court. Whichever it is, the actions should be stopped.

That's not what I said, you blithering idiot.

Look who's talking.

That is referring to the truth-value as well. He's saying that they should be considered guilty because the options are worse, which is exactly consistent with my post, as it renders a truth-value on their guilt because of the potential consequences. My position is that people will refrain from such because of the consequences, but the guilt or innocence is independent of that. You throw lots of accusations of fallacy around, but you don't seem to know what they actually mean, so doing so does not make you look any smarter or more experienced.

Again, look who's talking. Appeal to Consequence applies exactly to Lord Denning's position as he is taking the same tack as you —"we must not do X because A will happen and A is unacceptable"— as again demonstrated by your own words earlier in this thread:

but implementing justice is difficult when people would resist it, as I believe that they would to the point of violence, because this resembles a witch hunt and the targets would declare that it was a witch hunt, and much of their base believes in a world where this is a highly plausible state of affairs consistent with the actions of the Obama administration. I believe that if they were confronted with something that validated fantasies of the NWO, black helicopters, and death panels, that the true believers would attempt to obstruct it however they could.

And:

If it is a choice between letting people get away with their crimes or a complete collapse of the political order in the US, then I'm not sure why you expect Obama to pick the latter option or why it's still so clear-cut.

And:

Consider the scope of the necessary arrests. This would include most of the Bush administration, a number of Republican Senators and Representatives, large parts of the CIA's upper reaches, parts of the Department of Justice, parts of the Department of Defense, and that's just at a minimum, ignoring the number of actual torturers that would have to be tried, as well as private-sector individuals. Now consider that this would be overwhelmingly targeting a specific party and large parts of its upper reaches, which has an affiliated private news channel with which to repeat the story of witch-hunts endlessly, and you'll see why I think that this has the potential to destroy the US government. Unseating Obama and ending Democratic rule would be the least effect, to be frank. Consider that this plays into the paranoid narratives of a number of Tea Partiers.

Also, Appeal to Consequences arguments do apply to real world operations implying that an unacceptable A happens as a result of X, as per this example:

Claim

Since evolution began to be taught in public schools, crime rates and other social ills have increased.

Source

* Pehrson, Marnie, Jesus, New Math, and The 21st Century [1]

Responses

1. One could just as well say that "Since more Americans have joined churches, crime rates and other social ills have increased." Church membership increased from 25 percent to 65 percent between 1870 and 1990.[citation needed] The point is, while both statements could be technically correct, both are misleading and irrelevant, in that correlation does not mean causation.

2. The two sources given for this claim actually cite early 1960s court decisions related to the teaching of religion, or prayer, in public schools, not the much earlier introduction of biological evolution into primary school textbooks. In any case, this is an example of a spurious correlation. Earlier events (the critical variables) resulted in the teaching of evolution in primary schools, and may also have resulted in a contemporaneous change in reported crime rates. Significant research using early 19th century sources would be required to determine if any such correlation was valid. Such research would have to include the caveat that the collection of complete and accurate crime statistics is a recent (mid-20th century) social priority.

3. Crime has been with us far longer than the Theory of Evolution. The 19th and 20th centuries were marked by increased urbanization. This is a more plausible explanation for increases in crime than is the teaching of evolution.

4. Crime statistics are better tracked now than they were a century or more ago. So, without careful study, it is not clear whether the actual incidence of crime has increased. The case of "social ills" is even more ambiguous. It depends what social ills one is concerned with, but likely with respect to some social ills we are better off than we were a century ago. In short, a correlation of crime rates or social ills to the teaching of evolution has not been demonstrated.

5. Even if such a correlation existed, that would not mean that crime has increased as a result of the Theory of Evolution.

6. Even if crime had increased as a result of the Theory of Evolution, it does not follow that evolution is therefore false. It may have beneficial or undesirable sociological effects, but those effects say nothing about the truth or falsity of the theory.

7. During the large crime drop in the 1990's, there was no significant change in how widely evolution was taught. If there had been a correlation, then the teaching of evolution would have decreased as well.

References

* Source of church membership statistic: Edwin S. Gaustad, Philip L. Barlow, and Richard Dishno, New Historical Atlas of Religion in America, 2001, figure 4.16.

Fallacies contained in this claim

* Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc (correlation does not imply causation)
* Appeal to Consequences (if we teach evolution, we get more crime)
* Unrepresentative Sample (data are selected to get the desired correlation)

So I don't think I'm going to be taking lectures about fallacy definitions from someone who's trying so desperately to narrow the range as much as possible to salvage a broken argument.

Further, I would add that you keep missing an important principle: the interest of the nation in the proper fulfillment of the law’s requirements cannot yield to opposition and demonstrations by some few persons. Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts.* So even if the Right would get into its huff and even if they threatened violence and obstruction if the Bush mob were investigated and subsequently brought to trial, that cannot and must not be a bar to the proper operation of justice.

[K. A. Pital]

If the right wing in America would threaten violence and obstruction, that might actually alienate some of the more sane people from consistently supporting lunatics. So a certain amount of chaos in the U.S. "political order" (what's that political "order" anyway, the "incumbent party" being 100% equal to the other "incumbent party"?) would be even beneficial, in my view.

[Elfdart]

This is all very silly. Jorge Videla, the former generalissimo of Argentina, is currently serving time in prison, as is Alberto Fujimori, the former despot of Peru. Chile was in the process of stripping Pinochet of his immunity when he croaked, otherwise he would probably be making license plates now, too. So how is it that countries that actually had their lawfully elected governments violently overthrown and where coups really are a possibility can muster the courage to put their former tyrants on trial while America: Fuck Yeah! can't?

[Simon_Jester]

This is all very silly. Jorge Videla, the former generalissimo of Argentina, is currently serving time in prison, as is Alberto Fujimori, the former despot of Peru. Chile was in the process of stripping Pinochet of his immunity when he croaked, otherwise he would probably be making license plates now, too. So how is it that countries that actually had their lawfully elected governments violently overthrown and where coups really are a possibility can muster the courage to put their former tyrants on trial while America: Fuck Yeah! can't?

Decadence, of a sort?

No one in the US political order wants to risk upsetting the applecart. This is implicit in what Bakustra's been getting at. There are actions that would be physically possible for the government to undertake, as part of a criminal investigation, that would result in extreme political disruption and outrage on the part of one of the two major parties... to the point where what would be physically possible becomes very difficult because of a lack of political will and determination to punish the guilty. Someone would really have to want to take risks to make it happen, and there's no one with that mindset anywhere near a position of power.

The existing system is too comfortable, economically for the citizenry and (even more so) politically for the ruling class. No one wants to risk breaking it, and the rules by which the two rival parties measure gains against each other are very, very incrementalist: neither side thinks in terms of "it would be best to change the game," they think in terms of what a Rasmussen poll will say next week.

It doesn't help that where Videla and Fujimori were jailed by their own people for crimes against their own people, we'd be trying Bush and his associates for crimes against someone else's people. That does make this more difficult, for reasons that are blindingly obvious even if they're unpalatable. It's easier to mobilize the people against a deposed tyrant when said people remember being terrorized by his death squads five or ten years ago.

[Elfdart]

This is all very silly. Jorge Videla, the former generalissimo of Argentina, is currently serving time in prison, as is Alberto Fujimori, the former despot of Peru. Chile was in the process of stripping Pinochet of his immunity when he croaked, otherwise he would probably be making license plates now, too. So how is it that countries that actually had their lawfully elected governments violently overthrown and where coups really are a possibility can muster the courage to put their former tyrants on trial while America: Fuck Yeah! can't?

Decadence, of a sort?

No one in the US political order wants to risk upsetting the applecart. This is implicit in what Bakustra's been getting at. There are actions that would be physically possible for the government to undertake, as part of a criminal investigation, that would result in extreme political disruption and outrage on the part of one of the two major parties... to the point where what would be physically possible becomes very difficult because of a lack of political will and determination to punish the guilty. Someone would really have to want to take risks to make it happen, and there's no one with that mindset anywhere near a position of power.

Dude, it was a rhetorical question. Obviously The Village wants to protect its own.

It doesn't help that where Videla and Fujimori were jailed by their own people for crimes against their own people, we'd be trying Bush and his associates for crimes against someone else's people. That does make this more difficult, for reasons that are blindingly obvious even if they're unpalatable. It's easier to mobilize the people against a deposed tyrant when said people remember being terrorized by his death squads five or ten years ago.

Except the Cheney-Bush Junta has also tortured American citizens: Jose Padilla, John Walker Lindh and Yasser Hamdi.

[Zaune]

If the right wing in America would threaten violence and obstruction, that might actually alienate some of the more sane people from consistently supporting lunatics. So a certain amount of chaos in the U.S. "political order" (what's that political "order" anyway, the "incumbent party" being 100% equal to the other "incumbent party"?) would be even beneficial, in my view.

But that's just it. They won't be just threatening violence. They'll be going out there and taking potshots at the local Democrat congressperson, or worse.

[Simon_Jester]

It doesn't help that where Videla and Fujimori were jailed by their own people for crimes against their own people, we'd be trying Bush and his associates for crimes against someone else's people. That does make this more difficult, for reasons that are blindingly obvious even if they're unpalatable. It's easier to mobilize the people against a deposed tyrant when said people remember being terrorized by his death squads five or ten years ago.

Except the Cheney-Bush Junta has also tortured American citizens: Jose Padilla, John Walker Lindh and Yasser Hamdi.

Step back.

Determine the length of the list of victims of torture who have American citizenship under the Bush and Obama administrations. Determine the length of the list of victims of torture who had Chilean citizenship under, say, Pinochet.

Compare the lengths of the lists. This ratio is important, because it reflects the level of fear and hatred the torturers inspire among the domestic population. Pinochet's men tortured thousands of Chilean citizens. Bush and Obama's men tortured ones of American citizens. It should not come as a surprise that this affects how the public views the torturers. And that this difference in the public view can make it more difficult to rally public opinion against the torturers.

Practically every Chilean felt the fear of Pinochet's torturers, and a significant percentage of the population were friends or relatives of their victims. Very few Americans feel any fear of Bush or Obama's torturers, and only an insignificant percentage of the population are friends or relatives of their victims. Therefore, there is no widespread popular fear and hatred of the regime, such as would be inspired by the direct experience of knowing people who have been tortured by the secret police. This has practical consequences.

It has practical consequences even if in an ideal universe there should be no difference between the consequences of torturing one of your citizens and the consequences of torturing a thousand of your citizens.

And if that last sentence strikes you as perverse, stop to consider whether that is true in an ideal universe...

[Bakustra]

This is all very silly. Jorge Videla, the former generalissimo of Argentina, is currently serving time in prison, as is Alberto Fujimori, the former despot of Peru. Chile was in the process of stripping Pinochet of his immunity when he croaked, otherwise he would probably be making license plates now, too. So how is it that countries that actually had their lawfully elected governments violently overthrown and where coups really are a possibility can muster the courage to put their former tyrants on trial while America: Fuck Yeah! can't?

Those are individuals. There would be less of a problem if it were just Bush and Cheney being prosecuted (although there would still be problems and disquiet), but that would not really be justice, and the broad investigations needed would hit a great many people across the executive and legislative branches and at a number of levels. That's why I think this is problematic, because it reaches such a broad spectrum and yet is so party-biased that it cannot help but look like a witch-hunt, which then leads into everything else.

Also, Fujimori is the only example of a democratically-elected head of state being convicted for war crimes by his own nation, so that's not really a good way to indicate that this is a common phenomenon with the US as an aberration. It also took 14 years for Pinochet to be prosecuted after he stepped down. Only Videla was imprisoned within this timeframe after his removal from office. Hardly what you are making this out to be. A final nitpick- only Chile saw an overthrow of a democratically-elected government.

If the right wing in America would threaten violence and obstruction, that might actually alienate some of the more sane people from consistently supporting lunatics. So a certain amount of chaos in the U.S. "political order" (what's that political "order" anyway, the "incumbent party" being 100% equal to the other "incumbent party"?) would be even beneficial, in my view.

Why would it, since the narrative in this case would be in favor of the "lunatics" and the average person does not particularly care about the war crimes prosecutions? It looks like a response to attempted witch-hunts and political oppression from the outside unless you understand why this would be done and agree with the basic principle, and the media in the US is unlikely to present that favorably, if at all, since the emphasis is on quick soundbites rather than stories with the depth necessary to explain why these arrests had to be made.

PS: The Democratic and Republican parties are barely functionally identical even if you're generous. Presenting them as "100% equal" is not a good description of American politics.

[Simon_Jester]

To Bakustra's PS:

In micro, no they're not the same at all. In macro, they are the same de facto in many important ways. The Republicans are much more enthusiastic boosters of certain ideas than the Democrats: it's the Republicans who have taken the lead in setting the agenda on most American government policy since the end of the Cold War: drastic tax cuts in response to all possible economic conditions, laissez-faire fundamentalism, overseas imperialism especially in the Middle East, decay and dismantling of the social safety net and regulatory organs rather than the expansion and strengthening that was more common up until 1980.

The Democrats are not such avid supporters of this agenda. Except for the rightmost edge of the party, they don't get behind it and push. But they almost never come out and repudiate these ideas, except occasionally in rhetoric that is obviously meant to appease the left-wing half of the party. And that rhetoric does not translate into policy.

So you don't see Democrats taking a strong policy stance that Republican-style public policy should be actively reversed, or that the nation should strike out in directions opposite to the ones the Republicans are leading it. Sure, individual Democrats are quite likely to believe this, but as an organized party the Democrats don't move in that direction with anything like the enthusiasm the Republicans can rally behind their own attempts to remake America in their image.

In that respect, the two parties are de facto very similar. The end-state both parties lead the nation towards is the same: an imperial state with a major structural deficit causing decay of social and physical infrastructure, an immiserized lower and middle class, and an unregulated corporate sector that serves a tiny fraction the population at everyone else's expense. The difference is that the Republicans run towards this condition while the Democrats shuffle towards it.

From the point of view of anyone on the left by global standards (including, especially including a communist such as Stas), there is no real difference between the two parties. One party is in favor of trying to turning America into a cross between its own Gilded Age and Imperial Rome, while the second party is in favor of standing back and whistling while the first party does so.

In theory the change might be halted by electing nothing but whistlers to the government for a few decades, and the actual policy agenda might be drowned in a sea of whistling. But that doesn't make the whistlers who see no problem with enabling a change all that different from the active seekers of the change.

[Elfdart]

Determine the length of the list of victims of torture who have American citizenship under the Bush and Obama administrations. Determine the length of the list of victims of torture who had Chilean citizenship under, say, Pinochet.

Except Pinochet wasn't arrested for the murder and torture of thousands, nor was he collared for crimes against Chilean citizens. He was busted for the murder and torture of a handful of Spanish citizens who were killed and abused in Chile*: It was a Spanish arrest warrant.

The rest of your post could be easily re-written with Byron De La Beckwith or some other Ku Kluxer in place of Dubya's Willing Executioners. Only a small minority of blacks were lynched, after all. The average Southerner had nothing to fear from the guys in white sheets. The record shows that the feds spent decades investigating De La Beckwith before finally bringing him to justice.

* Looks like the Crawford Caligula just canceled a trip to Switzerland because human rights workers were pushing to have him arrested.



One would think that Switzerland is the last place the former Sadist-in-Chief would want to go, given the arrest of Roman Polanski, another creepy fucktard responsible for drugging and forcibly sodomizing minors.

[K. A. Pital]

Why would it, since the narrative in this case would be in favor of the "lunatics" and the average person does not particularly care about the war crimes prosecutions? It looks like a response to attempted witch-hunts and political oppression from the outside unless you understand why this would be done and agree with the basic principle, and the media in the US is unlikely to present that favorably, if at all, since the emphasis is on quick soundbites rather than stories with the depth necessary to explain why these arrests had to be made.

The only thing it shows is that the US media is engaging in propaganda for the right wing and standards of journalism being already so low down the shitter that it hardly even matters what you do. Obama is a Nazi Muslim Communist no matter what he does. Considering this, he might have tried to at least make a try, you know, to use this only opportunity to actually bring perpetrators to justice and investigate the crimes (and bare with me - I'm more or less sure that's the last time America had a President who lobbied on a democratic change or progressive platform for a long, long time).

PS: The Democratic and Republican parties are barely functionally identical even if you're generous. Presenting them as "100% equal" is not a good description of American politics.

Simon put it better than me. Republicans have unique traits (e.g. creationism, Christian fundamentalism), but when it comes to whom they serve, both Republicans and Democrats serve the upper class, lobby its interests either together in "bipartisan" agreements or independently. It is especially well demonstrated by the current Democrats being incumbent. Did they "turn" into Republicans-lite overnight when power changed? Obviously no - they were that way long before Obama was elected. They were that way through the entire Bush era and before that. What some call spinelessness is merely the unwillingness to go against their own interests. Because the American government acts in the interests of the elite, and itself is a part of the elite. Feel free to disagree with me, after all I've only been to the USA for what, four months? But that was more or less enough to get the impression I have now.

[Patrick Degan]

Again, look who's talking. Appeal to Consequence applies exactly to Lord Denning's position as he is taking the same tack as you —"we must not do X because A will happen and A is unacceptable"— as again demonstrated by your own words earlier in this thread:

According to your brilliant logic, ALL ethical, business, and pragmatic arguments are appeal to consequence fallacies.

No, that's only according to your Strawman. Learn the difference.

Also, Appeal to Consequences arguments do apply to real world operations implying that an unacceptable A happens as a result of X, as per this example:

Wow, you're fucking stupid.

Ad hominem.

Try reading your own content:

Even if crime had increased as a result of the Theory of Evolution, it does not follow that evolution is therefore false. It may have beneficial or undesirable sociological effects, but those effects say nothing about the truth or falsity of the theory.

See how it talks about the truth or falsity of the statement? Check the linked page too: http://evolutionwiki.org/wiki/Appeal_to_Consequences

So, even though the very example I outlined lists Appeal to Consequences as one of the fallacies composing that argument, you're going to argue it's not an Appeal to Consequences fallacy being talked about as being applied to a real-world operation as opposed to a merely philosophical point. Amusing.

The Appeal to Consequences fallacy occurs when an argument suggests that a premise cannot be accurate because the consequences of the premise's truth would be unpleasant or otherwise undesired (i.e. an Appeal to Force), or that a premise is likely to be accurate because the conclusion would be good or desirable (i.e. Wishful Thinking).

See how it talks about accuracy of the premise?

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sour ... =&aql=&oq=

See how that definition talks about the accuracy of the premise?

* Appeal to Consequences (if we teach evolution, we get more crime)

This is just sloppy writing. It is presented in the context of disproving the truth of evolution (thereby proving creationism... a fallacy in itself), so there and only there does it fit the fallacy. But you're too god damned stupid to understand context, so it flew right past you.

No, it's being presented in the context of the act (teaching evolution) being the cause of increased crime, therefore making the act undesirable, therefore making it something which should not be permitted. Further, it was not "sloppy writing" but a summary of the claim made by Marnie Pehrson in the article linked by footnote. It demonstrates no actual causal relationship or even correlation but simply points to the presumed consequence of the act being the reason for not permitting it. As per the definition at the Don Lindsey archive:

Argument From Adverse Consequences (Appeal To Fear, Scare Tactics): saying an opponent must be wrong, because if he is right, then bad things would ensue. For example: God must exist, because a godless society would be lawless and dangerous. Or: the defendant in a murder trial must be found guilty, because otherwise husbands will be encouraged to murder their wives.

Back to the context of Bakustra's assertion:

"If it is a choice between letting people get away with their crimes or a complete collapse of the political order in the US, then I'm not sure why you expect Obama to pick the latter option or why it's still so clear-cut",

Bakustra makes no logical chain connecting A and Z to justify a reasonable argument which considers plausible consequence B, C, D... proceeding from action A, which would justify his reasoning and therefore would not be fallacious. In other posts in which he has asserted:

"implementing justice is difficult when people would resist it, as I believe that they would to the point of violence, because this resembles a witch hunt and the targets would declare that it was a witch hunt, and much of their base believes in a world where this is a highly plausible state of affairs consistent with the actions of the Obama administration. I believe that if they were confronted with something that validated fantasies of the NWO, black helicopters, and death panels, that the true believers would attempt to obstruct it however they could",

he still does not offer a reasonable chain of logic connecting the action of pursuing criminal justice action against the Bush Mob with plausible consequences of doing so. He does not offer evidence that the sociopolitical state of this country is actually so volatile and fragile to the point that such action would result in mass violence, or even armed insurrection, he just asserts that it would be so. In his other supporting argument:

"Consider the scope of the necessary arrests. This would include most of the Bush administration, a number of Republican Senators and Representatives, large parts of the CIA's upper reaches, parts of the Department of Justice, parts of the Department of Defense, and that's just at a minimum, ignoring the number of actual torturers that would have to be tried, as well as private-sector individuals. Now consider that this would be overwhelmingly targeting a specific party and large parts of its upper reaches, which has an affiliated private news channel with which to repeat the story of witch-hunts endlessly, and you'll see why I think that this has the potential to destroy the US government"

Bakustra leaps right from A to Z with his "potential to destroy the US government" assertion, which is the most remote possible result to the point of being unrealisable. He does not even offer supports for his chain of arrests but simply presents a mass dragnet as an automatic condition in pursing charges against Bush, Cheney, Gonzales and those who were direct actors in the commission of war crimes.

What Bakustra is demonstrating is akin to this form of the Appeal to Consequence:

Appeal to Indirect Consequences. In the fallacy of an appeal to indirect consequences, also known as a slippery slope or domino theory, remotely possible but usually very negative effects are presented as the automatic consequences of a course of action or belief, with the idea that the sheer negativity of those possible effects will be sufficiently persuasive to ensure the rejection of that course of action or belief. In other words, if I can make it seem that your decision, however justified in itself, will produce certain and unavoidably negative outcomes, you will probably change that decision. The issue in a fallacious appeal to indirect consequences, therefore, is how certain and unavoidably negative these effects are. Let's consider some examples of arguments about smoking.

* Jay says that Maya should quit smoking because it leaves an unpleasant odor on her breath, hair, and clothes.

* Kay says that Maya should quit smoking because it has been associated with serious illness and death.

* Ray says that Maya should quit smoking because the inability to overcome an addiction is indicative of a personality unable to meet the stresses and responsibilities of a job or a relationship, and eventually Maya will end up broke, unhappy and alone.

Jay's consequence--the odor--is certainly the most automatic and unavoidable (though smokers are sometimes unaware of the smell themselves, and things can be done to minimize it). Though the consequence is negative, Jay's argument is not fallacious, and Maya should make her decision here on the relative importance to her of smoking and stinking.

Kay's consequences are more dire--illness and death--and more remote. These consequences don't always happen to smokers, and even if they do happen to Maya, the onset may be years off (depending, perhaps, on how much Maya smokes and for how long). Yet there is an impressive body of scientific evidence that almost everyone is aware of, which establishes a causal link between smoking and serious illness. At the very least, then, when dealing with Kay's argument, Maya would have to confront the strong probability that smoking is at least increasing her chances of contracting a serious illness significantly, and make her decision accordingly.

No one wants to end up "broke, unhappy and alone," but Ray's argument is obviously the most tenuous of the three. Notice the steps necessary to accept Ray's argument: that the connections are automatic, first between an addiction and a personality disorder, then between having that disorder and succumbing to pressure, then between succumbing to pressure and losing one's job and personal relationships, and finally between losing those relationships and ending up broke, unhappy, and alone. Those many questionable steps are what gives this fallacy its popular names, "slippery slope" and "domino theory," because once you begin accepting its tenuous connections, it's downhill or unstoppable from then on. Ray's argument, then, is a good example of a fallacious appeal to indirect consequences.

Of course, not everything with a long series of consequences is a fallacy; you must learn to differentiate between a chain argument and a fallacious appeal to indirect consequences. Both can have the form "If P then Q, then R, then S, then T . . ." but a chain argument is built on plausible causation and is confirmed a step at a time. In a slippery slope fallacy, the plausibility of its causal links is ignored, and the focus is entirely on the dire results at the end.

Bakustra is not making a chain argument, he is not presenting an examination of plausibly-connected negative outcomes, he is going off the deep end with an unsupported assertion. Which makes his argument fallacious on its merits, or lack thereof.

An appeal to consqeuence is "if we teach evolution, we get more crime, therefore evolution is factually false". Saying something like "if we teach evolution, we get more crime, therefore we should not teach evolution" is a whole different story; that's making an ethical argument - it hurts society more than it helps, so we shouldn't do it - one you don't have to agree with, but it isn't a fallacy.

It is a fallacy when no logical, reasonable connection between action A and outcome B can be demonstrated.

[Samuel]

It is a fallacy when no logical, reasonable connection between action A and outcome B can be demonstrated.

That isn't the fallacy. The fallacy deals with logical disconnect- what you are talking about is the fact that his statement is unsupported. This isn't a logical fallacy, just failing to prove his case.

edit- the irony is wikipedia has a good illustration of what this fallacy is:

If P, then Q will occur.
Q is desirable.
Therefore, P is true.

[Bakustra]

Why would it, since the narrative in this case would be in favor of the "lunatics" and the average person does not particularly care about the war crimes prosecutions? It looks like a response to attempted witch-hunts and political oppression from the outside unless you understand why this would be done and agree with the basic principle, and the media in the US is unlikely to present that favorably, if at all, since the emphasis is on quick soundbites rather than stories with the depth necessary to explain why these arrests had to be made.

The only thing it shows is that the US media is engaging in propaganda for the right wing and standards of journalism being already so low down the shitter that it hardly even matters what you do. Obama is a Nazi Muslim Communist no matter what he does. Considering this, he might have tried to at least make a try, you know, to use this only opportunity to actually bring perpetrators to justice and investigate the crimes (and bare with me - I'm more or less sure that's the last time America had a President who lobbied on a democratic change or progressive platform for a long, long time).

So you deny that this would look suspicious even without a propaganda channel? I'm grateful to Elfdart for bringing up Fujimori, since when his attempt to run again in 2006 was quashed by the courts, his remaining supporters called it and the later trial on human-rights abuses politically motivated. That's a first-order consequence, and that is without Fujimori having radicalized and armed supporters akin to the Tea Party or a news service broadcasting propaganda for him.

PS: The Democratic and Republican parties are barely functionally identical even if you're generous. Presenting them as "100% equal" is not a good description of American politics.

Simon put it better than me. Republicans have unique traits (e.g. creationism, Christian fundamentalism), but when it comes to whom they serve, both Republicans and Democrats serve the upper class, lobby its interests either together in "bipartisan" agreements or independently. It is especially well demonstrated by the current Democrats being incumbent. Did they "turn" into Republicans-lite overnight when power changed? Obviously no - they were that way long before Obama was elected. They were that way through the entire Bush era and before that. What some call spinelessness is merely the unwillingness to go against their own interests. Because the American government acts in the interests of the elite, and itself is a part of the elite. Feel free to disagree with me, after all I've only been to the USA for what, four months? But that was more or less enough to get the impression I have now.

That's perfectly reasonable as a socialist-perspective critique of the US political landscape in the current period, but it's not really tenable otherwise and for non-socialists, seeing as you do have attempts to end the Bush tax cuts, and there had to be a compromise negotiated rather than Democrats lining up for it. It's also focusing entirely on the economy, ignoring the question of things like civil rights, the role of government in society, and all that jazz, in which you see much sharper divisions. This is also ignoring that the Democrats are still the party of labor, and it's just the weakening of labor that has curtailed their voice (and the shift from materialistic to postmaterialistic values, but that's another story).

*snip*

The reasoning that I have is fairly simple:
1) If we want justice, we would want to ensure that those who committed war crimes are prosecuted and penalized.
2) The Nuremberg trials set the precedent that following orders to commit war crimes is itself a crime, and individuals can be complicit without giving orders or performing the actions themselves.
3) Torture is a war crime internationally and under US law is also a crime.
4) The sheer scale of the torture as revealed so far shows that the entirety of the Cabinet was aware. In addition, much of the upper echelons of the CIA is complicit for complying with the orders, and the Department of Defense for potentially colluding with them by handing people over and allowing the CIA to operate. The State Department also aided the CIA. The Department of Justice refused to investigate and may well be complicit in other ways as well. Senior Republican leadership almost certainly knew that there was torture going on, and refused to act to stop it.
5) Therefore, meaningful prosecutions would have to cover this range for investigations and arrests.
6) Arresting so many people that are connected by the previous administration, which includes large parts of the previous administration's government and a number of opposition party leaders, smacks of politically-motivated prosecutions.
7) NewsCorp is likely to charge the Obama administration with such and repeat it endlessly.
8 ) There is currently a prominent right-wing movement founded on the precept that the current government is on the verge of tyranny, which conducts rallies and is politically active.
9) Said movement has a number of individuals that are generally suspicious of government backing it, though they are not currently active.
10) Taking this into account, making the arrests would precipitate a response from the opposition and the movement.
11) One potential response is a walkout and/or a refusal to cooperate in government from the Republican Party, which would shut government down and be disastrous for the Obama administration, as they would have to govern amid calls of tyranny for doing so without Congress.
12) Another is protests against Obama from the Tea Party, and an intensification of current political rhetoric, which already focuses on fighting a supposed tyranny.
13) Overall, it has the potential to destroy the US government by convincing the Republican party that they are actually under attack from the Democratic party, which if taken immediately would look like a response to the 2010 midterms. I am going to say that whatever they do in response to it, it would be in opposition to the government.
14) It has the potential to inspire violence by supporting the narrative of persecution and liberal tyranny espoused by Fox News and the rhetoric of violence in vogue amongst the Right, giving them further legitimacy and inspiring a movement that is itself already politically active.
15) It also will be more damaging because it is easily misinterpreted as a political witch-hunt, which means that the average person is not likely to be sympathetic even in a neutral environment, without any sort of propaganda against it, and there is no compelling push except amongst a marginalized few on the Left to go forward with these charges.

Ultimately, there are a number of things that could happen, but all of them are more likely to be bad than good, with the worst case scenario being a collapse of the US government with a complete withdrawal of the Republican party from Congress coupled with a series of violent protests around the country. The best-case scenario is that more people call for Obama to be impeached. I cannot see how this would end up in roses and sunshine for all, given 4)-6) and the current conditions of American politics.

[Patrick Degan]

Ad hominem.

Yes, it is, but it isn't a fallacy. This is called a "flame".

Not that I expect you to get the difference.

A bit butthurt, are you? Two fallacies right out of the gate attempting to defend Bakustra didn't make you very impressive.

So, even though the very example I outlined lists Appeal to Consequences as one of the fallacies composing that argument, you're going to argue it's not an Appeal to Consequences fallacy being talked about as being applied to a real-world operation as opposed to a merely philosophical point. Amusing.

Appeal to authority. To a Wiki geek, no less!

NOT an Appeal to Authority but citation of text. Learn the difference. Appeal to Authority would be "A is true simply because Joe says it's so", not "Text B is an example demonstrating A". You become less impressive.

No, it's being presented in the context of the act (teaching evolution) being the cause of increased crime, therefore making the act undesirable, therefore making it something which should not be permitted.

That's a logical ethical argument, not a fallacy. Maybe I gave too much credit to the wiki authors.

Redefining terms now to suit yourself. Less and less impressive.

Further, it was not "sloppy writing" but a summary of the claim made by Marnie Pehrson in the article linked by footnote.

There is no appeal to consequence fallacy in that link. A lot of bullshit but not that fallacy.

Because you say so? Doesn't work that way, sport.

The wiki authors were apparently almost as stupid as you are.

Ad-hominem again. No, you're not impressive at all. Go back to arguing about fictional starships.

It demonstrates no actual causal relationship or even correlation but simply points to the presumed consequence of the act being the reason for not permitting it.

But, and this is important, it does NOT say the premise is factually wrong because of it!

How do you demonstrate factutal basis for a premise when you cannot demonstrate supports for the alleged fact?

Argument From Adverse Consequences (Appeal To Fear, Scare Tactics): saying an opponent must be wrong, because if he is right, then bad things would ensue. For example: God must exist, because a godless society would be lawless and dangerous. Or: the defendant in a murder trial must be found guilty, because otherwise husbands will be encouraged to murder their wives.

That's not a fallacy, taken literally. "Must be found guilty" is not the same as "Must be guilty". My guess is the author meant found guilty to reflect actual guilt, but taken literally, it's no fallacy.

Unfortunately, your "guess" is worthless as a determiner of anything. Now you're Appealing to Intent. The example outlines an unsupported negative outcome to action A, or lack of action A, and that is Appeal to Consequence whether you wish to acknowledge it or not.

* Jay says that Maya should quit smoking because it leaves an unpleasant odor on her breath, hair, and clothes.

[...]

Jay's consequence--the odor--is certainly the most automatic and unavoidable (though smokers are sometimes unaware of the smell themselves, and things can be done to minimize it). Though the consequence is negative, Jay's argument is not fallacious, and Maya should make her decision here on the relative importance to her of smoking and stinking.

Do you even know how to read? Your own source explicitly said you are wrong.

And now we can start adding dishonesty to your catalogue here, since you've taken my inclusion of the first example wholly out of context and deleted the second and third examples altogether to build your strawman. The reason the first two examples were given was to demonstrate why example 3 was fallacious. Or maybe it's you who has the reading-comprehension problem here since you clearly ignored or didn't even catch the whole context of the cited material.

Go back to arguing about ficitonal starships.

It is a fallacy when no logical, reasonable connection between action A and outcome B can be demonstrated.

No, then it's just a bad premise; insufficient evidence.

A premise can be reasonable logically but still have insufficient evidence to back it up, such as the premise that other stars must have planets revolving around them since our own star does, as was the case until the first exoplanets were in fact discovered, to name one example.

[Patrick Degan]

The reasoning that I have is fairly simple:
1) If we want justice, we would want to ensure that those who committed war crimes are prosecuted and penalized.
2) The Nuremberg trials set the precedent that following orders to commit war crimes is itself a crime, and individuals can be complicit without giving orders or performing the actions themselves.
3) Torture is a war crime internationally and under US law is also a crime.
4) The sheer scale of the torture as revealed so far shows that the entirety of the Cabinet was aware. In addition, much of the upper echelons of the CIA is complicit for complying with the orders, and the Department of Defense for potentially colluding with them by handing people over and allowing the CIA to operate. The State Department also aided the CIA. The Department of Justice refused to investigate and may well be complicit in other ways as well. Senior Republican leadership almost certainly knew that there was torture going on, and refused to act to stop it.
5) Therefore, meaningful prosecutions would have to cover this range for investigations and arrests.
6) Arresting so many people that are connected by the previous administration, which includes large parts of the previous administration's government and a number of opposition party leaders, smacks of politically-motivated prosecutions.
7) NewsCorp is likely to charge the Obama administration with such and repeat it endlessly.
8 ) There is currently a prominent right-wing movement founded on the precept that the current government is on the verge of tyranny, which conducts rallies and is politically active.
9) Said movement has a number of individuals that are generally suspicious of government backing it, though they are not currently active.
10) Taking this into account, making the arrests would precipitate a response from the opposition and the movement.
11) One potential response is a walkout and/or a refusal to cooperate in government from the Republican Party, which would shut government down and be disastrous for the Obama administration, as they would have to govern amid calls of tyranny for doing so without Congress.
12) Another is protests against Obama from the Tea Party, and an intensification of current political rhetoric, which already focuses on fighting a supposed tyranny.
13) Overall, it has the potential to destroy the US government by convincing the Republican party that they are actually under attack from the Democratic party, which if taken immediately would look like a response to the 2010 midterms. I am going to say that whatever they do in response to it, it would be in opposition to the government.
14) It has the potential to inspire violence by supporting the narrative of persecution and liberal tyranny espoused by Fox News and the rhetoric of violence in vogue amongst the Right, giving them further legitimacy and inspiring a movement that is itself already politically active.
15) It also will be more damaging because it is easily misinterpreted as a political witch-hunt, which means that the average person is not likely to be sympathetic even in a neutral environment, without any sort of propaganda against it, and there is no compelling push except amongst a marginalized few on the Left to go forward with these charges.

Ultimately, there are a number of things that could happen, but all of them are more likely to be bad than good, with the worst case scenario being a collapse of the US government with a complete withdrawal of the Republican party from Congress coupled with a series of violent protests around the country. The best-case scenario is that more people call for Obama to be impeached. I cannot see how this would end up in roses and sunshine for all, given 4)-6) and the current conditions of American politics.

Your reasoning is simple-minded you mean.

To take this part:

1) If we want justice, we would want to ensure that those who committed war crimes are prosecuted and penalized.
2) The Nuremberg trials set the precedent that following orders to commit war crimes is itself a crime, and individuals can be complicit without giving orders or performing the actions themselves.
3) Torture is a war crime internationally and under US law is also a crime.
4) The sheer scale of the torture as revealed so far shows that the entirety of the Cabinet was aware. In addition, much of the upper echelons of the CIA is complicit for complying with the orders, and the Department of Defense for potentially colluding with them by handing people over and allowing the CIA to operate. The State Department also aided the CIA. The Department of Justice refused to investigate and may well be complicit in other ways as well. Senior Republican leadership almost certainly knew that there was torture going on, and refused to act to stop it.
5) Therefore, meaningful prosecutions would have to cover this range for investigations and arrests.
6) Arresting so many people that are connected by the previous administration, which includes large parts of the previous administration's government and a number of opposition party leaders, smacks of politically-motivated prosecutions.

Nuremburg and Tokyo also relied on the established practise of limiting the scope of prosecutions only to those who were the most directly and deeply involved in the commission of war crimes. They did not go after the entire power structure of the Nazi Reich or the Japanese imperium, as attempting prosecutions on that scale would have been impracticable and would have obscured the issues of the trials of the main actors. In this case, we know who is most directly responsible (Bush), who most directly implemented and designed policy (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice), and who drafted the fictional legalisms justifying torture (Gonzales). After them, you have those who directly passed on orders and implemented them. Beyond that, the trail gets murkier and would only obsfucate instead of clarify. Which is why the actual scope of prosecutions would be limited, as they were at Nuremburg and Tokyo. For example: the Nuremburg prosecutors did not go after every surviving U-boat commander who executed unrestricted submarine warfare, they went after Karl Doenitz.

Next:

7) NewsCorp is likely to charge the Obama administration with such and repeat it endlessly.
8 ) There is currently a prominent right-wing movement founded on the precept that the current government is on the verge of tyranny, which conducts rallies and is politically active.
9) Said movement has a number of individuals that are generally suspicious of government backing it, though they are not currently active.
10) Taking this into account, making the arrests would precipitate a response from the opposition and the movement.

NewsCorp would do what you allege under any circumstances so this is a non-factor. Beyond that, you a) fail to demonstrate that the right wing movement is so large and millitantly organised as to actually constitute a genuine threat of political violence on a large scale —as was the case when Southern millitias were actively arming and drilling and b) that beyond shouting their lungs out at rallies while holding up badly written signs would actually do anything pro-active in the way of this resistance you constantly yammer on about.

Next:

11) One potential response is a walkout and/or a refusal to cooperate in government from the Republican Party, which would shut government down and be disastrous for the Obama administration, as they would have to govern amid calls of tyranny for doing so without Congress.

The Republicans are already hinting at a government shutdown over far less momentuous issues. Also, walking out on the government while serious problems affecting the daily lives of millions of Americans can so very easily backfire on the GOP, as it did in 1996. This also is not a reason for judicial cowardice such as you recommend.

12) Another is protests against Obama from the Tea Party, and an intensification of current political rhetoric, which already focuses on fighting a supposed tyranny.

The teabaggers are already mouthing such protests, so this also is a non-factor.

13) Overall, it has the potential to destroy the US government by convincing the Republican party that they are actually under attack from the Democratic party, which if taken immediately would look like a response to the 2010 midterms. I am going to say that whatever they do in response to it, it would be in opposition to the government.

14) It has the potential to inspire violence by supporting the narrative of persecution and liberal tyranny espoused by Fox News and the rhetoric of violence in vogue amongst the Right, giving them further legitimacy and inspiring a movement that is itself already politically active.

And here's where you leap right off the deep end yet again. Your point 13 might be valid if the Justice Department actually attempted to arrest half the Congress and Senate or even significant numbers from that body, but they won't, partly because elected officials have immunity as per the constitution, partly because of the aforementioned incentives to limit the scope of any legal action. Your point 14 depends, as I've said, upon the larger majority (or even a plurality) of teabaggers being more than just big-talkers and actually disposed toward action beyond blowing their mouths off at rallies.

Ultimately, there are a number of things that could happen, but all of them are more likely to be bad than good, with the worst case scenario being a collapse of the US government with a complete withdrawal of the Republican party from Congress coupled with a series of violent protests around the country. The best-case scenario is that more people call for Obama to be impeached. I cannot see how this would end up in roses and sunshine for all, given 4)-6) and the current conditions of American politics.

If you say so, Gracie. Unsupported assertions remain unsupported assertions.

[Patrick Degan]

Apparently, you don't even know what logic is. I'm not going to spend all night slamming into your wall of ignorance. I'll just let the mods handle you.

You're going to have a long wait ahead of you. Go back to arguing about fictional starships.

[K. A. Pital]

So you deny that this would look suspicious even without a propaganda channel? I'm grateful to Elfdart for bringing up Fujimori, since when his attempt to run again in 2006 was quashed by the courts, his remaining supporters called it and the later trial on human-rights abuses politically motivated. That's a first-order consequence, and that is without Fujimori having radicalized and armed supporters akin to the Tea Party or a news service broadcasting propaganda for him.

Fujimori's supporters went down into history as idiots and scumbags. The same will happen with Tea Partiers.

That's perfectly reasonable as a socialist-perspective critique of the US political landscape in the current period, but it's not really tenable otherwise and for non-socialists, seeing as you do have attempts to end the Bush tax cuts, and there had to be a compromise negotiated rather than Democrats lining up for it. It's also focusing entirely on the economy, ignoring the question of things like civil rights, the role of government in society, and all that jazz, in which you see much sharper divisions. This is also ignoring that the Democrats are still the party of labor, and it's just the weakening of labor that has curtailed their voice (and the shift from materialistic to postmaterialistic values, but that's another story).

Hmm. I can contest any of these points. Bush Tax Cuts - Democrats "compromised" on it when they could've ended them. And even this "compromise" (read: serve the rich) package was not supported by the entirety of the Democrats. Civil rights - Obama extended the Bush-era antiterror laws, didn't he? Role of government - neoliberalism postulates that the government's role is to serve and guard the market, but not command it. Obama has been giving no-strings attached bailouts to the private sector at the taxpayer's expense just as Bush did, and the Democrats support this. I do not see a great or sharp division here, sorry. Democrats being "the party of labour" is ridiculous - even a non-socialist should be able to understand that the law of oligarchy is in effect here, and most Democrats are filthy rich moneybags much like the Republicans are.

[SCRawl]

Apparently, you don't even know what logic is. I'm not going to spend all night slamming into your wall of ignorance. I'll just let the mods handle you.

Your position that this discussion needs moderator intervention has been judged and found wanting. But this thread is indeed being watched.

[Patrick Degan]

Oh, what the fuck, one more round....

No, will not feed the troll.

[Patrick Degan]

To get back to the main topic: in order to alleviate the stated concerns about a wide-ranging scope of investigations, arrests and trials which would, according to some of the rhetoric in this thread, lead to massive political chaos, and more to the point in order to keep the issues of war crimes committed in Iraq, Abu Ghraib, and Gitmo in sharp focus, then it is necessary only to go after the top players, the five individuals most directly responsible for said war crimes: George W. Bush, the president who authorised all actions, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleeza Rice, the core of the Bush Maladministration National Security apparatus who designed the policies for the Iraq and Afganistan wars, and Alberto Gonzales, the Attorney General who drafted the "legal" justifications for torture in violation of the Geneva Convention prohibitions. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former CIA director George Tenant have their own levels of complicity in this affair, but they would serve a better purpose as high-profile witnesses rather than defendants. Going after members of the two houses of Congress who cast votes authorising the wars would be a waste of time, partly because it would be very difficult if not impossible to connect any of those who voted for either war or the Military Commissions Act with solid knowledge of crimes being committed and therefore demonstrate direct complicity on their parts. The other reason is to avoid a prosecution which is going in several dozen different directions at once and obscuring the issues.

Of course, discussions along these lines are academic: it's become very clear that no action will be taken by this current administration to bring any of these people to account. There won't even be a "Truth Commission". There will be no justice of any sort in the wake of this sorry catalogue of events.