Say Anything Blog

One wonder what other options there were in his line of work.  If the choice is him, some other possibly worse thug, or to not do it at all one wonders what the correct choice or was.  This is a lack of due diligence in identifying all the associates of a marginal business partner in an industry in which every single participant has blood on their hands in some way or another.

I only offer that if one implies some level of guilt to poorly choosing short term business associates that do limited work because of possible ties to other bad folks, how much worse is choosing to meet repeatedly with known anti-American terrorists who admit their role in multiple terror attacks and spending 20 years doing business with radical anti-American folks?  That is Obama’s track record with Ayers and Wright.  Those were close friend and associates.

This was a case of choosing bad contractors to do a dangerous borderline mercenary mission.  Mercenaries are not normally known for being squeeky clean folks.  This guy appears to be among the worst of them.  Someone at a mid-level in purchasing for the Pentagon hired him.  Probably some Major or Lt. Commander.  These folks that run the bureaucracy are not really related to either political party, but rather to the bureaucracy itself as a separate class of folks that are nameless and take no accountability for their actions.

We need to purge these kind of folks.  The state department and pentagon are filled with folks with horrible judgment but purges of government workers are wildly unpopular and almost never undertaken.

Justin B
I feign to see the analogue between Bout and Obama. Nice spin though.

This is a lack of due diligence in identifying all the associates of a marginal business partner in an industry in which every single participant has blood on their hands in some way or another.

Considering the people we have bankrolled that we have fought, are fighting, and will fight… one would think that we might be wary of things like this.

Yun Chu said, “You must strictly not express in words what is very significant. Both dragon and snake are killed in one blow.”

I feign to see the analogue between Bout and Obama. Nice spin though.

That is not bad spin.  That is a simple analogy that sometimes folks choose very bad friends for the purpose of accomplishing their agenda.  Obama chose Wright to get street cred and win elections in Chicago and prove his “blackness”.  Turned out after the fact to be a liability. 

This was a very short term relationship with a very bad guy in an industry filled with almost all the folks being just as bad.  Pragmatic perhaps, but certainly a bad decision made by some midlevel person in the pentagon.  Do you know who made this decision and why?

an industry filled with almost all the folks being just as bad

you have extended your diss from merely bout and wright to all religious leaders and all members of the defense industry? wow. and people call me names around here!

also, I think the ‘who made this decision?’ patsy-searching is useless. its a repeated phenomenon, this is but one example. what about all the people who have repeatedly made this sort of decision who populate the bush admin? do you extend your complaints to all of them?

Yun Chu said, “You must strictly not express in words what is very significant. Both dragon and snake are killed in one blow.”

to all religious leaders and all members of the defense industry?

No the mercenary industry and the arms dealing industry.

what about all the people who have repeatedly made this sort of decision who populate the bush admin? do you extend your complaints to all of them?

Do you really think that an “administration official” made these decisions?  Do CIA officials make bad intel decisions?

For the most part, the answer is no.  Some generic pencil pusher that cares little about the “administration” but is some underling not an appointee is responsible for most decision making.  Bush does not “appoint” most military officers or defense civilian contractors.  Leadership has little ability to fire or discipline folks for these type of decisions.  All of this is a function of the bureaucracy of government.  And all of this is an indictment of big government policies.  The larger government is and the further removed from the people, the less accountable government is.

Do you really think this situation of using an arms dealer for possibly a few flights into Iraq is worse than Texas CPS invading and illegally detaining 400 children on a false phone call?  Again, this is a function of an ever expanding government with no accountability.  And almost none of these decisions ever reach folks that actually are elected officials.  Most are made by petty government working underlings since we empower these folks to run our big brother government.

So what you have to ask yourself is if you are a Libertarian leaning guy, who is the real problem?  Is it Bush or Clinton or whoever the executive in charge is?  Not by a long shot.  The enemy is all government that is bloated and unresponsive to their citizens.  No matter how much outrage there is over Bout, not a damned person will be disciplined and we don’t have a bit of recourse because having someone else in charge of the executive branch does nothing until we gut the bloated government and strip it of its internal bureaucracy and make it responsive to the will of the people.

BTW, this is my argument against socializing medicine and against Big Government Liberals.  We already realize how shitty the decisions government officials make.  Would you want the same asshat who made this decision in charge of deciding if and when you get a heart transplant?

Government is absolutely not the answer, it is the problem.  The larger government is and the more invasive it is in our life, the larger the problem.  Obama wants to drastically expand government and drastically increase taxes to pay for it.  He wants to feed the machine.  It is the machine that is the problem.  We need “hope” and “change”.  But the only hope is a smaller federal government, more state control and power versus federal power, and government closer and more responsive to the people.  We need state’s rights advocates.  They are the ones like Thomas and Scalia that voted for California and Arizona to have medicinal marijuana on Federalist grounds and they voted against Kelo and the seizing or private property via eminent domain to give to developers.  Liberals are the enemy of people that want smaller government.

The larger government is and the further removed from the people, the less accountable government is.

Aha. But we may not have gone into Iraq, say, without the sort of accumulation of money that this sort of setup leads to.

Do you really think this situation of using an arms dealer for possibly a few flights into Iraq is worse than Texas CPS invading and illegally detaining 400 children on a false phone call?

I have no sympathy for the ‘religious’. Fact is that the ‘Latter Day Saints’ are huge welfare hogs. Turns out not being able to register alot of wives leaves a lot of ‘single’ mothers who can claim a plethora of children in their household. What a boon, speaking of big government! We should limit aid or incentives to one child alone, if that. Bullshit!

So what you have to ask yourself is if you are a Libertarian leaning guy, who is the real problem?

The problem comes when huge, expensive bureaucracy and libertarianism are interchanged on a whim for justification.

They are the ones like Thomas and Scalia that voted for California and Arizona to have medicinal marijuana on Federalist grounds and they voted against Kelo and the seizing or private property via eminent domain to give to developers.

I have absolutely no sympathy for those men. They are religious, social conservatives of the worst kind. They are ‘activist judges’, make no mistake.

Would you want the same asshat who made this decision in charge of deciding if and when you get a heart transplant?

I don’t follow your loose analogies. I appreciate proper arguments for small govvy, but not those sort of emotional, loose analogical appeals.

Yun Chu said, “You must strictly not express in words what is very significant. Both dragon and snake are killed in one blow.”

I have no sympathy for the ‘religious’. Fact is that the ‘Latter Day Saints’ are huge welfare hogs. Turns out not being able to register alot of wives leaves a lot of ‘single’ mothers who can claim a plethora of children in their household. What a boon, speaking of big government! We should limit aid or incentives to one child alone, if that. Bullshit!

Were any of the children at the camp in question “huge welfare hogs”?  Were any of them on welfare at all?

I have no sympathy for the “religious”?  I am glad that you pick and choose what part of the 1st Amendment you support.  Talk about activist interpretation of the Constitution.  Scalia, Alito, and Thomas are not “Conservatives” in the political sense.  They are “Constructionists” and are dedicated to preserving original intent.  They generally advocate for the 1st, 2nd, and 10th Amendment in their original form, before the two were changed over decades by true activist judges.

You can pick and choose what Constitutional interpretations you want.  I choose to go with small government SCOTUS judges.  They voted against Kelo while the “liberal” justices voted for it.  They voted for medicinal marijuana while the liberal justices voted against it.  They have consistently voted for individual rights as opposed to Ginsberg who almost never does and who consistently supports larger Federal government interference.

I don’t follow your loose analogies. I appreciate proper arguments for small govvy, but not those sort of emotional, loose analogical appeals.

Nothing emotional about it at all.  Any industry at all that is nationalized runs into these sorts of problems.  Hence why original intent and the 10th Amendment are so critical.  The smaller the government organization, the less momentum it has to become an entity all its own, functioning simply by inertia and almost immune to the will of voters.  This is the argument against the Federal system as Liberals like Obama interpret it.  Huge Federal taxes that the central government occasionally doles out to the states or redistributes to the people according the the rules that can rarely be changed by the will of the people.

Scalia, Alito, Thomas, Roberts, and occasionally Kennedy are the only folks that advocate for the individual and for the state as opposed to big Federal government.  They also advocate that powers not specifically delegated to the Feds belong to the states or the people.  We have allowed the majority to impose its taxes and will upon the minority and to seize assets and redistribute them.  We are marching down a very bad path.  My argument is that if you want more of these kind of bad decisions, often involving life and death, expand the power of government into areas like CPS and healthcare.  We see the kind of decisions bad bloated big government makes.  Texas CPS and Bout along with Waco and Ruby Ridge are those type of decisions.

But you separate off the rights of the “religious”, so Waco, Ruby Ridge, and the FLDS are meaningless to you.  And by they way, they are not “latter day saints” they are a completely different group of people that only share a common history about 100 years ago.  Just like Lutherans and Catholics.

Justin
Did I catch you off guard? Did you know what sponges the Mormons are? Does it make you feel differently about the situation?

Fact is that the ‘Latter Day Saints’ are huge welfare hogs. Turns out not being able to register a lot of wives leaves a lot of ‘single’ mothers who can claim a plethora of children in their household. What a boon, speaking of big government! We should limit aid or incentives to one child alone, if that. Bullshit!

Siding with small government and the Mormons in a selective manner is why I said

The problem comes when huge, expensive bureaucracy and libertarianism are interchanged on a whim for justification.

Do you think it is acceptable for them to get so much of our tax money? Do you think its appropriate that you, me, and the next guy subsidize their excessive breeding habits? I know, for example, that Kitty hates it when African Americans have their reproductive habits subsidized, I am just wondering if that is a race-relative or religion-relative position or what? Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem with people having kids, provided they can afford it. That goes for all religious denominations and demographic groups.

Yun Chu said, “You must strictly not express in words what is very significant. Both dragon and snake are killed in one blow.”

They are “Constructionists” and are dedicated to preserving original intent.

Horseshit. Scalia provides religious justifications for his anti-homosexual platforms. ‘God doesn’t like it.’ It not the sort of opinion one should offer to the supreme court of this country. Freedom where you guys want it, but no sodomy, no religious freedom that isn’t Christian, and so forth.

How do you think you would feel about this thing in Texas if it was an atheist cult or a Islamic cult? Bet your ass those kids wouldn’t have gone back, even if the situation was less offensive. I am sick of this discriminatory, Christian-biased garbage.

You guys just want to have your cake and eat it. Everyone else can fuck themselves. I have seen it countless times.

Yun Chu said, “You must strictly not express in words what is very significant. Both dragon and snake are killed in one blow.”

Justin
Do you think that Scalia and Roberts and Thomas’s contempt for due process is compatible with the assertion that they are ‘originalists’ or whatever you are maintaining? How about the Patriot Act? Their support of torture and tribunals? You spew partisan garbage…

Yun Chu said, “You must strictly not express in words what is very significant. Both dragon and snake are killed in one blow.”

Their support of torture and tribunals?

Please provide the case and a cite where they supported torture.

I am sick of this discriminatory, Christian-biased garbage.

Sparkie,

Apparently, in that ivory-towered outhouse you inhabit, only those who are not of the Christian faith are qualified to offer legal or ethical opinions… conveniently disbarring a substantial majority of the US adult population.  How terribly Democratic of you!

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

Did I catch you off guard? Did you know what sponges the Mormons are? Does it make you feel differently about the situation?

You confuse “Mormons” with the FLDS.  Look at Utah statistics.  You spoke of polygamists of which the Mormon Church has banned since 1890.  These are not “Mormons”.  These are polygamists and any polygamist, as well as any serial adulterer leaves a similar trail of welfare recipients.

Justin B
I am not as sensitive to the differentiations between sects that you are. Sorry.

When the excessive reproductive habits of the spiritually fervent are funded with my money I am forced to pay, it pisses me off. I will extend this to the Baptists, the Mormons, and all the others that fit this niche.

Ken McCracken
Roberts recused himself from one trial because of decisions he offered in the DC court of appeals… on torture.

Scalia supports the unipolar executive branch that Bush has organized and maintained. None of that is remotely consistent with ‘original intent’ no matter how you squirm and spin it. Luckily these people run their mouth in public on occasions that aren’t formal, published ‘opinion’.

Bat one
You display contempt for large portions of the US citizenry based on their views and or religious beliefs. Your ‘linen suit’ is not as white as it would need to be for your trash talking to have any bite. Look in the mirror in re: Democracy.

Yun Chu said, “You must strictly not express in words what is very significant. Both dragon and snake are killed in one blow.”

Sparkie,

The idea that some sort of secular sociological jargon be the sole ingredient of moral arguments is ridiculous.  The idea that the majority of Americans must voluntarily dismiss the reality of moral absolutes when offering political opinions is absurd.  Whether a relative moralist or an absolute moralist, both require a belief system and both are reflected in each one’s sense of morality respectively. 

The notion that the secular is somehow pure and unbiased by assumption or belief is untrue.

The value of natural law and its influence on our founders and form of government was key to securing a nation where liberty is the God given right of every individual. Then, this was secular.  Today materialists ask us to equate the “secular” of the past as they define it today, then argue for strictly atheistic arguments for morality apart from any reality of an absolute moral authority. 

It’s a trap, and a clever one at that.

The error of this thought any idea that a God exists is strictly a religous thougth.  The failure to distinguish between a knowledge of a Creator derived solely through natural observations and faith in the testimony of supernatural revelation.  The first is secular in nature, and the latter religous.

thought [is that] any

The[re is a] failure

Sorry about that last parapraph.

Sparkie,

I may have contempt for your more (deliberately?) outlandish views and those few citizens who share them, but I don’t recall suggesting that Souter, Breyer, or Ginsburg should be removed from the court because I disagree with their logic or their religious faith… as you have Scalia, Thomas, and Roberts.

As for Democracy, I don’t believe I’ve used or alluded to the word.  I referred to “Democratic” with a large “D”, a reference I would have thought was obvious.

“Poverty of goods is easily cured; poverty of the mind is irreparable.”

Nothing but straw arguments. HG, if you could perhaps quote my comments in the above thread that you are referring to, we would make some headway. Thanks.

Bat one. Again, if you feel that I have claimed those justices should be ‘removed’, do quote me. I am merely pointing out that the idea that these justices are ‘originalists’ in any robust fashion is foolhardy. Moreover, as far as I am concerned, all the current supreme court justices are ‘activists’ of one sort or another.

SO far, much of the constitution has been hollowed out, replaced, or entirely reinterpreted. However those original ideals function nowadays is interesting but hardly as they did way back when; to maintain that any of the current sitting judges pays attention to the original intent of the 1700s constitution is silly.

Freedom of religion is one of the ideals that this country was founded on. We will extend polygamy and impregnating those too young to consent into the protection of this umbrella, but we will write in the dissent that homosexual behavior is not what God likes. As if the perceived likes of one God or Gods should hold sway in a country that practices religious and epistemic pluralism, by its very nature and mandate, since the beginning.

Bullshit.

Yun Chu said, “You must strictly not express in words what is very significant. Both dragon and snake are killed in one blow.”

Roberts recused himself from one trial because of decisions he offered in the DC court of appeals… on torture.

Show me the cite where Roberts supported torture.

I should clarify that the reason Roberts recused himself was because it is obviously inappropriate for a SCOTUS justice to adjudge a case he ruled on in the lower court.

Now, provide proof that these justices ‘support torture’ or retract your scurrilous claim.

but we will write in the dissent that homosexual behavior is not what God likes.

Could you provide a link to this dissent?

Nothing but straw arguments

Freedom where you guys want it, but no sodomy, no religious freedom that isn’t Christian, and so forth.

No religious freedom that isn’t Christian? You’ve gotta be kiddin’.

Sodomy is arguably not natural. (Unless of course you would argue it is for dogs and equate human beings with animals, which first assumes no difference between the two, in which case men ought to just mount the next hottie that walks by in public view).

proof that these justices ‘support torture’

scalia does so here. listen for yourself.

Yun Chu said, “You must strictly not express in words what is very significant. Both dragon and snake are killed in one blow.”