[Hi, Angry Black Readers. This is a guest-post by friend of ABLC, Ian Boudreau, who is a science writer in North Carolina. You can contact him at @iboudreau on Twitter. asiangrrlMN.]
When The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf sat down to write a response to Jonathan Chait’s excellent essay for New York Magazine (“When did liberals become so unreasonable,” Nov. 20th), the results were predictably, well, unreasonable.
Friedersdorf’s title alone (for which he may not be directly responsible) is enough to cause eye-rolling: “Why do liberals keep sanitizing the Obama story?”
The list of grievances is a familiar one to anybody who has kept even passingly abreast of liberal intellectuals’ responses to current events over the past three years: the Obama administration has expanded the use of drone strikes in the Afghan theater; they have done nothing to roll back the ancien régime’s warrantless wiretapping of American citizens or collection of powers to the executive; they have continued apace with the “war on drugs,” etc. Friedersdorf also makes several claims that range from bizarre, to egregiously misleading, and in some cases flatly false: the Obama administration is collating a “secret kill list” of American citizens (this an apparent reference to Anwar al-Awlaki, the “American” member of al Qaeda who served as the group’s chief English-language propagandist and who died September 30th in a fairly unsurprising manner); it is responsible for an “Orwellian turn” of airport security procedures; it illegally entered into the conflict in Libya earlier this year.
Even if you were to grant Friedersdorf his laundry list of complaints against Obama (and I don’t), his post is a protracted non sequitur that talks past Chait’s thesis so as to give Friedersdorf a fresh opportunity to re-air his personal grievances.
Chait’s essay on liberal unreasonableness isn’t an apologia for the Obama administration – his point is that disaffected liberals seem to enjoy rewriting their own history in order to comfort themselves with avatars from the past. He addresses several silly ideas that you hear tossed around fairly frequently, such as the notion that one or both Clintons, had they been president for the last three years, would have somehow managed things better (the historical record – the real one, that is – tends to undermine this idea), or that Jimmy Carter, as president, was more “purely” liberal in his policy pursuits (he wasn’t).
What Chait doesn’t get around to explaining in his piece is the concurrent phenomenon of liberal dyspepsia – the old goalpost-shift.
Since “liberalism” is a term used less to denote a specific ideology and more to round up a fairly broad set of policy preferences and priorities, this has always been a difficulty. A liberal politician might respond to pressure from environmentalists to protect wetlands in his district, only to find himself beset the next day by cries of, “Why have you done nothing on marriage equality?” – and he’d be likely to notice some familiar faces in the “new” crowd of malcontents.
We saw this as the Clinton-era “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy was making its dreary march toward repeal. Prior to December 2010, liberals everywhere were frustrated that the policy hadn’t been killed already – so much so, in fact, that some I spoke with said they wouldn’t be voting for Obama again and were likely among those who stayed home on election day that year. A month later, the repeal order was signed (although, the rather ponderous process that would eventually lead up to full repeal still left many cold), and a host of new tea party-backed freshmen were measuring drapes for their Washington congressional offices.
Repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” was a campaign issue for Obama, and liberals made it a salient one again in 2010 when it hadn’t happened. But after it was repealed, what happened? Certainly no political windfall for the Obama administration – or, at least, none detectable in the liberal opinion pages. Instead, the focus shifted to marriage equality and repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act – an important issue, to be sure, but there seemed to be a distinct shortage of kudos from the crew who had in November been nearly apoplectic about the president’s “inaction” on DADT.
The press is more valuable when it is adversarial to incumbents – traditionally, it challenges the status quo and forces politicians to account for their actions. But we’re dealing with a different landscape now than we have in the past in that media of today shape prevailing narratives. I hate to paint in such overly-broad strokes, but it seems to me that in maintaining their adversarial identity, many liberal opinion-leaders seem willing to ignore context and focus on failures or things yet-undone to the exclusion of accomplishments and successes (even if these have, in democratic tradition, been compromises of one kind or another). This creates the impression – among liberal intellectuals themselves, problematically – of generalized failure, of being sold out, and of the “need” to search for someone who will represent their interests better.
So when Friedersdorf “skewers” Chait for “ignoring” the issues Friedersdorf feels are most important, Friedersdorf isn’t just missing the point: he’s showing that he is perfectly happy ignoring the policy accomplishments of the Obama administration that set it so sharply apart from that of his predecessor – making Friedersdorf just as guilty of the unreasonableness Chait points out in his essay: just like all the unhappy liberals sighing meaningfully as they remember the halcyon days of the Clintons.
Good point.
Would you expect anything different?
Chait has pointed out these same whiners have been doing it to every democratic president since FDR
And when the new guy comes in, try and compares him to some fantasy version of the previous Democrat they spent years tearing down
The same liberals that hated FDR in the 60s, are lionizing him, when its something to use to demonize the present president
You see their new fixation, Elizabeth Warren
If and when she achieves higher office, and if the damn unicorns that fart glitter and rainbows dont come off the assembly line within 30 days of her getting inaugurated, the long knives come out and the stabbing begins
Fareed Zakaria told these same fools to grow up and they went after him by the short and curlies…..
They want to be free to criticize with impunity, but, you question them, here comes the hounds of hell
From Conor and The Atlantic? Yes, I would expect something different. Maybe that’s naive, but I still hold them to a higher standard.
Same old, same old. Why live with realpolitik when you can play fantasy football with political affairs? The same liberals that fawn over the short-changed Carter either are the same folks who threw him under the bus in 1980 or are the willing disciples of the life long whiners.
Nothing new here – move along.
“So when Friedersdorf ‘skewers’ Chait for ‘ignoring’ the issues Friedersdorf feels are most important, Friedersdorf isn’t just missing the point: he’s showing that he is perfectly happy ignoring the policy accomplishments of the Obama administration that set it so sharply apart from that of his predecessor.”
Here’s the thing: I’m not a liberal, so I don’t agree with the premise that, for example, the Affordable Care Act is something to celebrate. I do appreciate that President Obama ended torture and permits gays to serve openly in the military. But I supported him because he promised to rein in executive power, be better on civil liberties, and change America’s approach to the War on Terrorism. His failures in these areas go totally unacknowledged by Jonathan Chait’s piece. Finally, I object to the headline that calls my critique “Chait hate.” I like Jonathan Chait.
Wooosh
The “whoosh” from Chris is an indicator that you’ve missed the point of Chait’s article and this one. The purpose of Chait’s article was to show that liberals are always unhappy with a Democratic president, and do so because they have a fantasy about past presidents as well as what is possible. In so doing, they ignore concrete accomplishments and spend most of their time complaining about what hasn’t been done – or what they thought should be done.
My own experience with the Left matches what Chait wrote. I’ve seen far too many complaints that aren’t based on what candidate Obama ran on, but instead on a fantasy platform. I’ve seen a continued litany of gripes, moans, screaming conniption fits, and rants which turn out to be misdirected, based on a rumor, or just because it didn’t match with their “perfect.” At no time do I see acknowledgement of accomplishments.
Lo and behold, your comment just makes that point. You’re taking Chait to task because he didn’t spend a great deal of time, or even the entire article, detailing and complaining about Obama’s “failures.” Which wasn’t what the article was about, and validates Chait’s point, along with this post.
Here’s the gist of Mr. Boudreau’s piece:
You may have proven Jonathan Chait right. Your rebuttal to Chait is exactly what he said liberals have been doing for the last 40-50 years. You’ve made a laundry list of things a current Democratic President hasn’t done while 1) ignoring what they have currently accomplished and 2) being oblivious to the current political climate this President is operating in as well as the real limits on their power.
So, the question is – how long will it be before the left start to glorify Obama after he leaves office? And will this glorification be under more years of GOP dominated government because the left was too busy shooting themselves in the foot…again! Will we rewrite Obama’s history just like we’ve done with Clinton, Carter, LBJ, Kennedy, and FDR so he will confirm to our idealized liberal version of a POTUS?
Sorry, but I’m sick and tired of this madness. And considering that Obama still has overwhelming support among his base, I think most on the left are sick of it, too. This was the one error in Chait’s article. He’s assumed that the small group of liberals who are disappointed with Obama speak for the base when they clearly don’t. Are you suppose to be blind to Obama’s shortcomings? Of course not, but don’t tear him down when the alternative is a lot worse.
Even if you vote third party, you still are going for the alternative. Our system makes it extremely difficult for 3rd party candidates to be viable in general elections. So the best any 3rd party candidate can do is split votes from one of the major party candidates. And quite frankly, I’m willing to take that chance. Especially when a sitting POTUS will never to live up to idealized liberal standards.
Correction – And quite frankly, I’m NOT willing to take that chance. Especially when a sitting POTUS will never to live up to idealized liberal standards.
Conor, first of all I’m rather chuffed that a writer for the Atlantic would personally respond to my criticism — and I mean that unironically. Thank you.
But you’re making unreasonable demands. What I was trying to highlight in the piece was that Chait’s goal in his New York Mag essay wasn’t to give some kind of full accounting of the Obama administration; it was to put the lie to some of the weirder delusions liberals have come up with since it began. There’s lots of room to discuss the things as-yet-undone; but that wasn’t what Chait was trying to do. Your response was arguing past him, and I apologize if I didn’t make that clear.
Also, I didn’t write the headline. I know you respect Chait, and I hope you realize that I respect you. That respect led me to expect more of you than you showed in the response cited above.
Here’s what I like about what you’ve written. Time and again, I try to make the same point. Libs have a tendency to be their own worst enemy. They demand so much, and give so little when the demands are met.They are, in fact, some of the worst, most fickle, and most difficult to appease political allies I know of. Particularly for incumbents, the only way to really garner professional left support is to render one’s self virtually incapable of reelection (with the exception of local elections of course). But when they aren’t appeased, they become, for lack of a better term, rabid. Even if you give them what you want, if it isn’t done to their satisfaction, if it isn’t done shitting on Republicans at the same time, they become not allies, but liabilities.
Under this dynamic, no sane politician can afford to rely upon the liberal base. Who would do such a thing–putting their political fortunes in the hands of a group of people that will ultimately attack you regardless of what you do? It makes no logical sense.
But what I like about this article is you give about as solid of an example as could possibly exist. Obama got DADT repealed, and he did it the right way, through congress, in such a manner so as to prevent its reinstatement later. An act like this should have garnered him a ton of political capital from the so called base. But, as you point out, he got nothing. He got an apology from Rachel Maddow on air which was soon lost in the midst of her descent into EmoProg madness.
Thing is, this vocal minority of liberalism seems to do everything they possibly can to prevent politicians from being on their side.
Why are lefties – the people who are presumably against top-down hierarchies — so dependent on a Great Shining Liberal President to do the work for them across the board?
And why hasn’t the left done a good job of building up the kinds of grassroots networks that the Christianist far right has over years and years and years?
Because in my view, since the end of the Vietnam War (and perhaps not coincidentally, the end of a draft that actually threatened the interests and lives of white privileged males who mostly called the shots in the New Left), the “left” hasn’t learned how to work both within and without the system to make incremental gains the way that civil rights activists in the 60s and feminists and gay rights and disability rights activists in the 70s and 80s and beyond have done.
(And of course, these are the activists who are now being told “Focus on CLASS and economic justice, not your own special interests!” now that, once again, the interests and livelihoods of white middle-class men are on the line with rising unemployment and foreclosures, and it’s not just the bodily integrity, civil rights, and economic needs of ethnic/racial minorities, disabled folks, GLBT, and women that are threatened. Funny, that. Why no Occupy movement when Clinton ended “welfare as we know it?”)
It’s so much easier to continually paint oneself as a victim of oppressive disappointing government than to do the hard nitty-gritty work to CHANGE that government. Slowly. Painfully. In ways that will, as President Obama said on election night, take more than “one year, or even one term.”
I think the money quote for me in Chait’s piece is here:
“There is a catchphrase, which you’ve probably seen on bumper stickers or T-shirts, that captures the reason liberals have trouble maintaining political power: ‘Stop bitching, start a revolution.’ At first blush it sounds constructive. If you consider it for a moment, though, the line assumes that there are two modes of political behavior, bitching and revolution. Since the glorious triumph of revolution never really pans out, eventually you’ll return to the alternative, bitching. But there is a third option that lies between the two—the ceaseless grind of politics.”
The right-wingers know how to use that third option and have done so effectively in dog-and-pony races across the country — how else do you think they managed to take over school boards and push the creationist agenda? It’s one of the conundrums of the contemporary political scene: both far left and far right folks believe that government is inherently oppressive and bad, etc., etc. But that doesn’t stop the far right from trying to CONTROL government by voting, canvassing, fundraising, etc. By contrast, too many leftists refuse to participate in grunt work, hold their politicians to an impossible purity standard that conveniently lets themselves off the hook for voting or allows them to vote for pointless feel-good boutique candidates like Nader, and then wonder why they don’t have a seat at the table. And they also wonder why anti-government narratives that work against their pet aims (single-payer healthcare, for example) find such welcoming soil in the American political narrative.
The left loves to talk policy while hating the politics needed to enact it.
It seems the PLs have been nothing but talk for ages, but fall back to doing nothing but complain and shooting themselves in the foot, and when their obstinacy fucks them up the ass, its someone else fault.
Didnt Barack Obama say, as Van Jones puts it all the time, Its Yes “WE” Can, not Yes “I” Can…….
Thats why Barney Frank is saying fuck all that shit and retiring, the ones who have been trying to do right are getting frustrated with these fuckers who complain, but dont show up to do the work they’re complaining about
The Far Left wants to have the same influence the Far Right does, but without all the icky grassroots organizing, and quickly. A while back, I gave a quick list of 6 things they needed to do to be listened to, and amazingly, they’re all things that none of them seem to be interested in.
Sorry for long comment — but after the Naomi Wolf bullshit this weekend, I’ve been holding in a lot of this!
I’m a fairly raging liberal for the most part. I’ve got problems with the Obama administration, but I can see the general point that Obama has done some good. I read this blog because while I often think the writers here go too easy on the administration, they do bring up accomplishments that are worth celebrating and that help to keep me from being a complete pessimist, and they often make points that I think are both solid and unique. I think this post has a few things going for it. That said…
The way Boudreau uses quotes around the word “American” when describing al-Awlaki is just fucked up. That fucker may have been a piece of shit who deserved to die, but he was still a fucking American. Full motherfucking STOP.
Perhaps this wasn’t Boudreau’s intent, but from where I’m sitting, that sounds like a massive trivialization of the extra-judicial killing of an American (fuck quotes) citizen. Maybe Boudreau has a coherent view of why al-Awlaki was specifically legitimately eligible for targeted assassination. If he does, I hope he’ll share it with us, but in the meantime, those quotes around “American” are no substitute, and anyone who gives a flying fuck about due process should be appalled by that shit.
It was an ancillary point to the one I was making in the post, but I used quotes around American in reference to al-Awlaki because membership — particularly leadership – in al Qaeda is effectively a renouncement of any special treatment one might expect for being an American citizen. Al-Awlaki may have been born on American soil, but as a regional commander in AQ, he was also a legitimate military target under the Authorization for the Use of Military Force passed by Congress shortly after Sept. 11, 2001.
I find myself very much not appalled by the way in which he met his fate.
I don’t think I could disagree with you more on this. There are established ways of officially renouncing one’s citizenship and the constitutional standard for treason is very strict. There is no record of al-Awlaki doing the former, and no evidence has been presented in any court of law that he is guilty of the latter. No mere Act of Congress, even some weak-ass we-don’t-want-to-actually-declare-official-war bullshit, should abridge the rights associated with citizenship.
Also, when I said that “anyone who gives a flying fuck about due process should be appalled by that shit”, I wasn’t referring to al-Awlaki’s manner of death (though, yeah, that applies too). I was referring to the way in which you casually dismissed that fact that he was an American citizen.
The idea that the President or anyone in his administration should be able to sentence a citizen to death by targeted assassination without due process is just fucking wrong and is not a precedent we should want to create only to be exploited the next time the Republicans are in charge. Weaseling around by coming up with lame reasons why his citizenship doesn’t apply isn’t any better.
And what about his American citizen son who was killed in a separate attack? His rights don’t matter either? Was he also an al-Qaeda leader? Fuck evidence! Boo to that noise.
The first sentence of Article Three: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”
“Levying” war against the US? Check.
Adhering to (our) enemies? Check.
What is it about that definition you have a problem with, exactly?
Look, actions in the real world have consequences. Lightning flashes and thunder follows. Align with al-Quaeda and you may meet an untimely end from above.
There are things in life that bother me, al-Awlaki’s demise is not one of them.
And the second sentence of Article III, Section 3 (you forgot that part) reads, “No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court.”
Where’s the “check” there, That Guy With The Selective Quote? Skip the conviction! Straight to the execution!
I’m going to make the educated guess here that if there was in fact a trial you’d be first (second maybe behind the loathsome Glenn Greenwald) in line to denounce it as a drumhead show trial.
And then I’m going to quote Kerry Reid:
Because Kerry is bang-on right about this.
Despite many things about it that need fixing, this is still my country and if you make war on it I want you dead.
Clear enough for you?
And it’s probably not a good thing to be an apologist for those who make war on my country either, if you stop to think about it. For that I think I might support a drumhead trial.
So if you want any suggestions on what to do with your selective outrage, keep it up.
I don’t think there’s a need to use consequentialist reasoning to justify the way in which al Awlaki was killed. We didn’t “deny him a trial” because it would have been difficult or impractical to grant him one — we didn’t give him a trial and “due process” under criminal law because he wasn’t a criminal. He was killed in action by a completely legal military action, in which he, as a member of opposing forces identified by Congress, was the target.
I feel compelled — yet again — to point out that American citizenship has absolutely nothing to do with the due process clause.
The due process clause applies to persons. Not citizens. PERSONS. And it applies to persons within the jurisdiction of the United States. Had Al-Awlaki been in the United States, citizen or not, he could have availed himself of due process protection. He did not do so. Moreover, his father filed suit on his behalf and STILL he did not avail himself of US constitutional protection. I’m so sick and tired of Greenwald readers freaking out about “targeted assassination of American citizens.” If you’re going to freak out, freak out about targeted assassination of PERSONS. And then explain why killing Bin Laden was a bad idea. There is very little difference between Al-Awlaki and Bin Laden, aside from citizenship which is, again, entirely irrelevant, albeit really sexy for the civil liberties crowd.
So please, stop spewing bullshit about summary execution of American citizens. It’s a red herring. Greenwald knows it. Anyone who has studied constitutional law knows it.
A policy discussion about military and police force is always in order. Greenwald’s legal arguments, however, are a farce. Carving out Americans as if we have some rights above and beyond the rights of any other human being on the planet makes you no better than the neocon assholes who claimed that the lives of Iraqi civilians don’t count as much as the lives of American soldiers. When you strip down Greenwald’s argument, it’s actually xenophobic and disgusting, in addition to being constitutionally and logically unsound.
Greenwald cares so much for the browns in Afghanistan because he can write an endless number of books about “ZOMG SECURITY STATE,” but cares not one whit (that I can discern) about the browns in the US. What a bunch of hypocritical bullshit.
I agree that the distinction between citizens and persons is shitty. I generally think that the people who regard our rights as God-given are pretty fucked up when they think that God-given rights were apparently only given to Americans.
However, I was under the impression that the legal distinction with due process and citizenship was that while due process applies to all persons within US jurisdiction it still applied to US government actions toward US citizens even outside of its jurisdiction. I read your link, but it was to your own comment on a previous thread. That’s fine, but if you could give me the name of any appellate court case backing your point up, that will help my understanding.
In the meantime, if not due process, what legal concept prevents the US from being legally able to murder or otherwise fuck over its own citizens outside of its jurisdiction?
I’ll admit to mixing moral/policy arguments in with legal arguments. It’s not that I try to obfuscate by doing so. It has more to do with the fact that I was raised by a criminal defense attorney, and so those lines have been somewhat blurred for me.
While I used to regularly read Greenwald’s blog, I haven’t done so since last winter. So I’m not going to answer for every argument that he makes. Whatever due process argument fuck-ups are my own, and I don’t want to have to answer for that guy. So please address my own arguments as opposed to his if you want to continue this discussion (please continue this discussion!). I’ve been slammed with Greenwald This! and Greenwald That! since I first posted on this thread. I somewhat regret responding to that part of it because it never ends here. If we could all take the arguments in which I invoked due process and consider them my own moral/policy arguments as opposed to technical legal arguments, this will go much more smoothly.
Regarding al-Awlaki’s father filing suit on his behalf, I don’t think that was along the lines of due process and jurisdiction, but because of other standing issues. Am I wrong, there?
I wasn’t thrilled with the killing of bin Laden. Once all of the bullshit about wives-as-shields and whatnot settled, it sounded like they could have captured him. I’m not sad that he met a shitty end, but I do prefer capturing over killing when possible for a variety of reasons (which I can get into if you actually want me to).
The difference between him and al-Awlaki is that while bin Laden seemed to take credit for the 9/11 attacks, I haven’t seen any such credit taken by al-Awlaki for any operational planning, any evidence outside of simple assertion that he was involved, or that any such evidence was presented for oversight to any judiciary body.
The killing of al-Awlaki was a summary execution. Full stop. You may feel that it was justified, but it was a summary execution.
Back to citizen vs. non-citizen, I don’t think that citizens are superior or deserve superior rights. Frankly, I think that soldiers voluntarily give up rights and therefore have fewer rights than citizens or non-citizens. My distinction between citizens and other persons has to do with what you say is my misunderstanding of due process described above. I do think that any government has a greater duty to its own citizens than to other persons when those distinctions are necessary, but I don’t think that there is any moral difference between the two groups. So while I understand your accusation of xenophobia, I do not think that I am personally guilty of that.
Thanks for jumping in on this, ABL. If you could direct me to further information about my misunderstand of the application of due process, I would really appreciate it.
I’ve been looking into it, and I haven’t found any case law to back up the idea that due process does not apply to US government actions toward US citizens outside of US jurisdiction. I’m not even convinced that the idea has been addressed by the courts at all. I’ll keep looking, but if you can post a link to something to show me what you base your opinion on, I’d appreciate it.
Wow, contempt for due process *and* the First Amendment. Keep it going, Tough Guy With The Macho Authoritarian Fantasies! You’ll make a fine Republican.
So objecting on principle to illegal, unconstitutional government conduct makes me an apologist for al-Awlaki? By that “rationale”, I guess the ACLU would be Nazi-apologists for defending their right to free speech. Oh, that’s right! You just demonstrated that you don’t give a shit about that.
Selective outrage, ha! Nice attempt to recover from my annihilation of your ridiculous treason argument. I see you dropped any further attempt to legally justify that. I’m guessing that’s because you don’t have one.
What color is the sky in your world?
If Greenwald said it was blue, I’m sure you’d reflexively disagree. (And here comes your response that if Greenwald said that the color of the sky was wharrgarbl, that I’d agree. This is a very productive conversation.)
Not really. As explained by Norbrook and myself, there was no legal apparatus available to even bring Al-Awlaki back for a trial. There is no extradition treaty with Yemen. Yet, Al-Awlaki was still a member of an organization that declared war on the U.S.
What would you do in this situation?
At the bare minimum, have a judiciary body review the evidence against him prior to launching the attack. See my other replies to your comments.
I’m going to go a bit further here. I went and had a look at your linked blog, prompted in part by your “raging liberal” comment above.
You’re not a raging liberal, you’re a raging lunatic.
The strongest impression I got was of someone quite unable to distinguish what’s important and what isn’t. Here’s a hint: When everything is important, nothing is.
It really must be horrible to be you. So much to be upset about, so little time here on earth. Maybe if you cared about someone real you’d have less time to expend on your abstractions? The one thing you might want to watch out for in that, though, is that people are sometimes inconsistent in real life and thus prone to disappoint someone with expectations such as yours.
As for “demolishing” arguments, when (if?) you ever actually do, please notify us all so we may marvel at your wisdom. All you did was leap from one misconstruing to another and continue to rant, and frankly, you’re not even very good at that. Might I suggest electric fan repair as a less challenging area of endeavor?
Or you can simply continue on as you do, fulminating about things you can’t change and refuse to understand because they don’t conform to your counterfactual worldview, and slowly fade further into irrelevance with each line of frothing, ill-crafted prose.
And the shark has been jumped!
First off, when you put something in quotes, it generally means that you’re, you know, actually quoting somebody. I said “annihilation”, not “demolishing” thank you very much. I’m not claiming wisdom. It really wasn’t that hard. All I had to do was read the next fucking sentence of the section you selectively quoted.
But if you’re actually going to respond to my argument, why don’t you tell me exactly either why only the first sentence, but not the second, of Article III Section 3 applies, or tell me how the second sentence can be interpreted to not apply. No? I’m not surprised.
I don’t even know why I’m asking that because you haven’t responded to a single one of my arguments in this comment, but have resorted exclusively to a lame-ass ad hominem diatribe based on what your dumb ass can see when you peer into my soul… and by soul, I mean my short-lived, defunct blog. How’s about making an actual argument against anything you actually found there?
Nice investigation there, That Guy With Shit For Brains. Dicks. Eat them.
I’m beginning to enjoy this. A couple more and your head might actually explode.
Exactly where is it written in stone that I have to address you in a manner of your choosing? Rather presumptuous of you, I’d say.
As for your argument, I and others have in fact addressed it.
I’m surprised you haven’t yet managed to work Bradley BabyJesus Manning into this. Is that coming soon? Please? Pretty please?
If, as you said, I peered into (what passes for) your soul, well, I found it a dark, confused, dismal place, and your continued insistence on revealing that to one and all remains a puzzle.
Face it, you’re little more than a punk antagonist working the same corner as every four-year-old that’s not getting enough attention at the grownup party. Get dismissed and you come back screaming all the louder.
OK, we notice you. “Like” isn’t close to being part of the equation.
I could go on, though I think this will suffice to prod you into further bursts of hysterical rage. Hell, I think “What time is it?” might easily do that, given what I’ve seen here.
What time is it?
All of the “he should have had a trial” crap – and that’s just what it is, crap – skips right over the reality that we don’t have an extradition treaty with Yemen, we had no ability to have him arrested there, and you and the rest would have been screaming your head off if we’d sent in SEAL teams to get him. Your solution would be to leave him alone, acting as a commander of Al-Qaeda, until hopefully the government changed and we might be able to extradite him. Right. Not going to happen anytime soon.
So, I guess Obama should have sent in Team 6 like a S.W.A.T. team, bum rush the compound, risk death and injury to get this guy.
And if we had brought him here, all hell would have broken loose
Remember how the Republicans had their panties in a wad when Obama and Holder tried to have KSM tried in New York 3 years ago
And all the NY officials and pols from Bloomberg and Kelly to Chuck Schumer turned on the administration
If you gotta kill some terrorist, I prefer having drones sent in, rather then troops in a useless, bloody ground war
Team 6, as in the Navy SEAL squad that we sent to do exactly what you describe to bin Laden?
Sure, people would absolutely have shit themselves if we’d brought any of these people to the US for trial. Just because the modern American people are largely comprised of a bunch of craven cowards with giant hard-ons for lawless revenge doesn’t mean I have to like it.
Speaking of cowardice, while I can see legitimate use for drones, I think there’s value in actually having to risk personal loss in order to wage war. It’s just so easy when the losses are all on the other side. Shit, we can just blow up whoever we want. Fuck collatoral damage, right? I mean, it’s not like disregard for innocents is in any way immoral or that it will ever come back to haunt us in the form of a bunch more pissed-off people, right?
You seem to have forgotten one point made by Norbrook. We have no extradition treaty with Yemen. So, therefore, it would have been extremely difficult to give him a trial.
The mere fact that extradition would have been always impossible makes your entire argument about Al-Awlaki getting a fair trial moot. And in order for an extradition to be carried out, cooperation with the foreign government is necessary. In other words, if there was an extradition treaty, law authorities in Yemen would have actually had to find and apprehend him. They couldn’t even locate him for their own court proceedings much less extradite him back to the U.S.
And before you say, “Well, we obviously found him. So, why couldn’t we just bring him back to the U.S. for trial.” Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way. Even if an American citizen who’s being charged with a crime leaves the country, the U.S. needs the permission of the foreign government to bring them back. This is the reason why Roman Polanski (a famous film director) has lived in France for the past 35 years. In the 1977, he was charged with sexually assaulting a 13-year girl. He fled to France and the U.S. has been trying for years to bring him back. France is not cooperating since he’s a French citizen. And it was the same case for Ira Einhorn, who killed his girlfriend in 44 years ago and also fled to France. Finally, France allowed for Einhorn’s extradition with the promise that he would not face the death penalty here in the U.S. Unlike, Polanski, Einhorn was actually an American citizen and the U.S. couldn’t just go in and bring him back for trial. With France, we have an extradition treaty which outlines a formal process of getting criminals who flee there back for due process. With Yemen, there is no treaty and therefore, no formal process. So, what do you do? You have a person who is involved in terrorist activity against the U.S. but there’s no formal process to bring them back for a trial?
This is what ticks me off about some on the left. In your argument about stomping on the rights of a citizen, you completely forget the intricacies of the law (especially on an international level). Do you honestly think that the Obama Administration didn’t think about any of these things while making this decision? Given the complicated legal situation, I think they made the right choice.
I can easily see where your argument comes from, but it’s clear you don’t understand the practical implications of it. How do you give this man a fair trial when there’s really no legal apparatus to give him one? And how does that weigh against him being a member of an organization intent on causing harm to the U.S. and its citzens? Sorry, but the issues are not always clearcut.
I don’t see how the matter of extradition applies so I don’t feel the need to respond to the specifics of your examples with France. Sure, in an ideal world, Yemen would capture him and turn him over to us to be tried.
Why couldn’t we send a SEAL team in to capture him? If Yemen was really trying to catch him and they couldn’t, what’s the problem? We did it for bin Laden in Pakistan (with whom we do have an extradition treaty), so what’s the problem with that? It’s not ideal, but I could accept it.
Judging by your other comment, you’re one of the few people who actually seems to understand that I think that judicial review (not a trial) is the bare minimum that I would accept (though you overstate the range of circumstances in which I demand it). What is the argument against judicial review of the evidence against him prior to launching the attack? They had been planning to kill him for quite a while before they took their shot. I am extremely uncomfortable with a single branch of government being able to order the killing of a citizen without judicial oversight. What is the problem with that?
Read my responses to Ian for my response to the “trial” stuff. I didn’t scream my head off when we sent a SEAL team into Pakinstan for bin Laden, though I’ll admit that I’d have preferred a capture over a kill.
Here you are saying this guy should have a fair trial and yet, you don’t understand what extradition has to do with this?
Look, I’m not an attorney, but I work heavily with them. And they happen to work in fields heavily related to this one. And somehow, you seem to have the answers that people with way more experience and knowledge than you don’t have?
Sorry, I’m not buying it. Adios! Have fun living in your “ideal world.”
I replied directly to you that I would accept judicial review prior to attack. I understand extradition just fine. It doesn’t apply because, as you said, we do not have an extradition treaty with Yemen. We do have one with Pakistan, but we still didn’t abide by that process when we sent in the SEAL team to capture bin Laden. Extradition treaties do not allow for that. So if we’re going to do it in Pakistan, why can’t we do it in Yemen?
Congratulations on working with attorneys. I’m sure that’s just awesome.
We trivialize (or at least ignore) extra-judicial killing of innocent Americans on American soil ALL THE DAMN TIME. Especially if they happen to be some combination of Young, Black, and Male. I found that the PL bloggers who used al-Awlaki’s death as a club to beat the president are strangely silent on the legalized harassment and murder when it happens in as part of “excessive use of force” by cops. For that matter, when was the last time Glenn Greenwald took time out of his busy schedule of demonizing Obama as “WORSE THAN BUSH!!!!” to address the ongoing human rights abuses in Brazil? (http://prospectjournal.ucsd.edu/index.php/2011/07/human-rights-abuses-in-brazils-favelas-in-preparation-for-world-cup-and-olympics-rio-de-janeiro-and-sao-paulo/)
I guess Glenn doesn’t want to lose the privileges his Rich White American Male identity provides for him in his adopted nation by actually speaking up where he lives. Or does it violate some Glibertarian Fanboy “principle” to protest the clearing of the favelas?
Okay, Kerry, now I like you a lot. So much, in fact, that I once advocated for you to be a front-pager here.
http://www.angryblacklady.com/2011/08/20/another-poll-arising-moment-in-america/#comment-17428
But your response here is a lame non sequitur. When you see me showing indifference to or justification for police brutality or any other sort of misconduct under the color of authority, feel free to bring that argument at me. It does not apply in this case, and I don’t appreciate you pretending that I’m Glenn Greenwald or any other member of whatever you consider to be the “Professional Left” or that I march in lockstep with any of them. I expect that bullshit from some here, but not from you.
But hey, I think I may have defended Greenwald in the past here, so let me add this to the mix: I imagine that Greenwald doesn’t write about Brazilian issues because he’s an American citizen writing primarily for an American audience who would be living in America if our country would allow his partner to live here as well. (Also, how is he simultaneously part of the “Professional Left” and a “Glibertarian”?)
This is another thing that annoys me about your argument (as well as about some of the other posts here lately): How can you expect anyone to address every fucking thing? Should we not speak out about abuses by our own government unless we include criticism of every other government in the world? The Occupy protesters can’t complain about police brutality directed at them unless they’ve already complained about police brutality directed at others? It doesn’t matter that the goddamned movement isn’t about police brutality to begin with? None of the individuals associated with the movement care about racial injustice just because the movement as a whole isn’t focused on that particular (very serious) problem?
How is that any different that the common argument around here that President Obama has done a great deal of good and the “Professional Left” shouldn’t ride him for not addressing every fucking thing?
First things: I have no fucking clue who are you are. Ergo, I don’t care if you like me or advocated for me to be a front-pager. (Speaking of non sequiturs.) That earns you no brownie points with me. I don’t care what you do or do not “appreciate” about my tone, because what I wrote wasn’t about you. Shocking, I know.
As for “non sequitur” and “How can you expect anyone to address every fucking thing?” — that is precisely what you’ve done by bringing up al-Awlaki in this context — and please, Greenwald can’t talk about human rights abuses in Brazil because he’s not writing for a Brazilian audience? Horseshit. Do you honestly think if he felt a raging need to write about it that he wouldn’t?
“The Occupy protesters can’t complain about police brutality directed at them unless they’ve already complained about police brutality directed at others? It doesn’t matter that the goddamned movement isn’t about police brutality to begin with?”
Gee, if I’d actually written that, you might have a point. But I didn’t, so you don’t. As for the “goddamned movement” not being about police brutality — are you sure about that? Because that’s what I’ve been reading about for the past month. But then, it’s hard to say what a movement without leaders is actually about.
“Professional Left” and “Glibertarian” actually go together quite well. Which is why Naomi Wolf was screeching at a Ron Paul rally: http://www.tnr.com/blog/jonathan-chait/crying-wolf#.TtBl9JqEwsE.twitter
I don’t, in fact, see what happened to al-Alwaki as the beginning of a slippery slope. Had he been a German-American citizen who went back to fight with Hitler, no one would have given him due process on the battlefield or asked to see his fucking passport before he was killed. And I maintain that the amount of pixels spent on this case from people who never routinely write about the ongoing, racially-motivated, and systemic abuses in our criminal justice systems is hypocrisy.
I wasn’t pretending that you were Glenn Greenwald. My response actually had nothing to do with you. Which is why I used “We” at the beginning of my response, indicating that issues of police brutality and extra-judicial killings of people who are just walking down the street and NOT making common cause with al-Qaeda are ROUTINELY ignored in this country. But you know, that’s just a non sequitur. Let’s get back to talking about the important things — like where Ian puts quotation marks.
I was getting all set to make the hypothetical point about an American citizen fighting on the side of Germany during the second world war, and I see that Kerry has ably beaten me to it.
The fact of the matter is that citizenship doesn’t enter into the calculus at all. As a member of al Qaeda, al Awlaki had no expectation of being apprehended, tried and possibly punished by any American civil authority, and no such authorities had jurisdiction to track him down in Yemen and bring him to trial. You see how ridiculous it even sounds to lay out your expectations, megamahan?
It’s much simpler than that, which is why I cited the AUMF bill above. As a member of al Qaeda — and certainly not a new one — al Awlaki’s “case” was handled in the way the “cases” of so many officers in the German Afrika Korps or Luftwaffe were: the military saw an opportunity to cause attrition to the ranks of an enemy, and took it. Case closed.
First off, I’d actually like to thank you taking the time to try to address my actual arguments. I was pretty harsh right out of the gate with you, and you’ve kept your cool pretty well, certainly better than I have. I do think that’s admirable.
Here’s the thing. I didn’t expect al-Awlaki to get a trial. That would be ideal, but sure, it’s unrealistic. I just think it’s fucked up that it’s considered by so many to be okay to target a citizen for assassination without even the level of judicial review that it would take to get a search warrant when eight of the nine Justices of the Supreme Court think that you can’t indefinitely detain a citizen without due process. So, yes I do think that citizenship should enter into the calculation. Does that make sense?
I’m pretty sure al-Awlaki’s expectations are beside the point. An individual’s subjective expectations have no bearing on law. The closest thing I can think of to that in law is the reasonable expectation of privacy. While that’s still subjective, it’s not dependent on the actual expectation of the accused.
Here’s the other thing. No evidence has been presented to the public or any judicial authority that al-Awlaki was actually engaged in operational planning for al-Qaeda. Yes, it has been asserted that he was, but assertions without evidence are useless. All we know for sure is that he gave speeches and talked to people to offer “spiritual guidance”. If you want to make WWII comparisons, that’s more like a chaplain than an officer.
Neither you nor anyone else here has responded to my remarks about al-Awlaki’s son being killed later in a separate attack. Was he an al-Qaeda leader too?
So having a blog, website, and even a Facebook page discussing his alliance with Al-Qaeda is not sufficient evidence? Sorry, but when you join any organization that has declared war against the United States and committed deadly terrorist acts in the process, what do you expect?
And do you honestly think that every casuality in war is subject to judicial review? Does the military need a search warrant everytime it searches an enemy location? Please remember that Al-Awlaki joined an organization that was fighting a war against the U.S. And the U.S. Congress passed legislation in 2001 in response. So, despite your claim, Al-Awlaki was on the battlefield.
Did his blog, website, or Facebook page have an admission that he was involved in operations planning? As I’ve stated earlier, his expectations have nothing to do with the legality of his killing.
No, I do not think that every casualty in war is subject to judicial review. I do think that any citizen subject of a targeted killing should be. No matter how many times people say it, he was not on a battlefield. If he’d been killed during an actual battle, I wouldn’t have a problem with it. This should not be a difficult distinction to understand.
Which part of Al-Qaeda declaring war on the U.S. do you know understand? Sorry, but he was on the battlefield. He joined an organization that that said it was.
Wait, so you’re saying that it was a battlefield because al-Qaeda said it was? I’m sorry, but I’m neither aware of that proclamation nor accepting of the idea that the opinion of a terrorist group has any bearing on our laws or standard of conduct.
Well, I certainly think this is a topic that warrants discussion, and I can see the merit in what you’re saying, so I’ve approached it with the seriousness I think it deserves.
I’m certainly not privy to any special information about al-Awlaki, but all the Googling I’ve done seems to indicate that the FBI and whatever Defense intelligence assets handle this kind of thing were quite assured that he was an al Qaeda member – first working as a recruiter and “spiritual adviser” here in the United States, and then, after a period of imprisonment in Yemen in 2006, promoted to an al Qaeda “regional commander” some time in 2009.
Before you point it out, I’ll go ahead and acknowledge the fact that Googling his name and looking at the footnote references in the Wikipedia article on him do not constitute the kind of fact-finding that a grand jury is designed to do, so this all amounts to so much hearsay. But since there’s no way for me to look at his FBI file or any other official documentation, I’m afraid it’s all I can come up with for now. However, I’d be very surprised to learn that he had no such connections — the evidence, such as it is, all seems to point one way.
I don’t want to come across as being indifferent to the right to fair trial, because I’m not. But we’re approaching this subject from very different trains of thought, and the area where they overlap — which is the government-suborned killing of an American citizen — is where things get difficult to sort out. You are correct when you say that al Awlaki’s death was the executive unilaterally targeting an American citizen for killing, because that’s what happened. But I think I am also correct in saying that the executive has the power to order the military to engage and kill enemies, which can include non-state actors (such as terrorist organizations and their members) for military action.
Honestly, I don’t know exactly how to square these two apparently contradicting issues. What I do find distasteful is the notion that simply being American immunizes someone from the death and destruction that it seems to be acceptable to visit on citizens of other nations. I’m not a constitutional scholar or anything, but my reading of it is that except in a very few cases, the rights enumerated in the Constitution are thought of as inherent to persons, not just citizens (as ABL discusses above). While it’s sometimes tempting to think of the Constitution of a list of benefits of being American, my (untrained) feeling is that it is instead a framework within which the government must operate with regard to persons in general.
I’ll do a little more reading on this case and maybe try to put together a more complete and focused treatment of al Awlaki — although others here who have more education in military and international law may be better-equipped to do so.
In any case, thanks for reading and responding. I’ll look forward to further discussion — as I said, I do think this is an important issue.
Thanks for your response, Ian. Again, I realize I was pretty harsh on you right off the bat, and I do apologize. I’m glad we can have a real discussion about this.
I have no desire to contest his characterization as “spiritual adviser”. He has openly advocated for violent jihad against the US, and I don’t dispute that. I do think that is protected speech.
I will offer a little resistance to his characterization as a “recruiter”. While I realize this may seem like a technicality (it is not), I would not consider him such unless I were aware of actual evidence that he were actually soliciting people to join al-Qaeda. Again, if said evidence were simply shown to and accepted by a judicial body first, I could accept that. I admit that the jump from adviser and preacher to full-on recruiter is not a big leap.
It’s the “regional commander” part that would really legitimize his targeted killing in my mind, but here is where I must insist on judicial oversight. It’s a much larger jump from adviser to commander. While it’s not unbelievable, it does require solid evidence.
I’m the last person to get on anyone’s ass about relying on Google and Wikipedia for matters like this (as long as you’re following the footnotes, as you said). Where else are you going go? And yes, what information is out there does not generate much if any sympathy for him, so I can see why people are glad he is dead.
It’s not that I have such a problem that he met a grisly end or even that we did it. It’s that we did it without judicial oversight. We have checks and balances for a reason. While I would not be shocked if the accusations turned out to be true, I can see why some people would want to take him out merely for his speech. Even if he was not an actual recruiter, his calls for violent jihad may be perceived to have greater legitimacy to those potential terrorists as they came from a US citizen and were directed at the US. There is an obvious interest in shutting him up, but we’re not supposed to shut someone down merely for speech. Judicial oversight should be there to ensure that does not happen.
Again, while I do think trials are ideal, I don’t necessarily expect them in many situations, including this one. However, when I say “extra-judicial”, I don’t just mean trials. I could accept a healthy amount of judicial oversight.
I agree that rights in general should not be limited to any select group of people be that group “citizens” or any other distinction (except as I said before, for soldiers, who voluntarily give up certain rights as a condition of service). I’m not sure if you caught my response to ABL’s comments, but I said as much there. Inalienable rights are universal rights. I agree. I do think that when a government starts committing crimes against its own citizens that special attention is required. Any government’s primary responsibility is to its own citizen, and if that government is fucking them over, you know that non-citizens are getting it that much worse.
Thanks again for your thoughtful response. I also look forward to more.
As to the matter of al-Awlaki’s son, I have to confess complete ignorance of the details. I’ll read up on that, as well.
Frankly, I should know a lot more about the details than I do (then again, not much information is available). I’ve read conflicting reports about his age. The official line seems to say he was 21, while an article I read about the protest of his killing by his family put his age at only 16. Either way, I can’t see how he would have been any sort of leader. I confess that I don’t know that his was a targeted killing. If there were actual terrorist activity of which he was in the middle, then it would be a moot point for me. Same goes for Anwar himself. It’s really the targeted killing aspect that gets me. (Not that I’m sure that you care, but the son was also a US citizen for what it’s worth.)
Don’t feel bad about being harsh at the outset — this is the Internet, and I wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t weathered a brutal rejoinder or two. If you’d been needlessly hostile, I wouldn’t have bothered responding. The post itself is a bit of a takedown of Conor’s point (and I have to admit that I’m glad it annoyed him enough to warrant a personal response, even though he still seems to miss the point). Lively debate is what drives the life of the mind, as far as I’m concerned. Not everyone is wired for it, but I enjoy a good scrap, and in this case it really has given me occasion to reevaluate my thinking. So, and I mean this genuinely, thanks.
I’m working on a longish essay now that I hope will represent your concerns fairly and weigh them against what I think is a reasonable counter-argument. You’ll have to let me know if it’s successful. In the meantime, cheers.
Thank you for your kind words. I still think I should have been more measured in my initial reply, but I appreciate your understanding. I look forward to your next essay.
I brought up my previous admiration of your comments not to earn brownie points but to soften the way you would perceive my criticism of your response to me. I apparently failed there, but considering your follow-up, fine, fuck it. I take it back. (I know, I know. You don’t care, and trust me, I’ll be crying myself to sleep about it.)
I see now that I was totally out of line by assuming that you were responding to me. Believe or not, it’s a common assumption that when someone clicks the “Respond” link under someone else’s post. Shocking, I know.
So I was the one who brought up al-Awlaki? Uh, yeah, it’s in the third paragraph of Boudreau’s original post. Do you even know which fucking thread you’re on?
I’m not going to continue speculating about Greenwald’s motives for deciding what he’s going to write about. I’ll defer to your clearly superior mind-reading abilities.
The line of mine that you selectively quoted was part the “some of the other posts here lately” point I was making. I was referring to the post from which you seem to think this thread spawned:
http://www.angryblacklady.com/2011/11/25/open-letter-to-ows-%E2%80%9Coh-so-now-police-brutality-matters%E2%80%9D-by-blackcanseco/
Granted, Black Canseco did wrap things up by asking the Occupy movement to recognize police brutality against others, but not before being pretty dismissive of the violence that has been perpetrated against the protestors as well as their reaction to it.
You’re being willfully idiotic about your suggestion that the Occupy movement just might be about police brutality because, gee, who can tell? Seriously, that’s just dumb. Pay a little fucking attention.
I’m not making a slippery slope argument. I’m straight-up saying that future administrations (mostly Republicans) will likely abuse these extra-judicial powers of assassination because the idea of blowing up brown people gives them a massive hard-on. It’s not a moral slide. They’ll dive right the fuck in.
Your hypothetical about the German-American falls short because al-Awlaki was not on a battlefield. That’s why they call it “assassination”.
The main difference that I see between the al-Awlaki situation and the entirely-too-common killngs of civilians by the police is the fact those who are killed by police weren’t signed off on by the president. Yes, the police issue is a huge fucking problem. Yes, the officers who commit those crimes should rot in prison. But the two issues are different.
You’re being willfully stupid again in your last sentence when you pretend that I’m merely being a grammar scold rather than objecting to Boudreau’s casual waving-away of someone’s citizenship. Lame.
Generally, when somebody starts a sentence with “We,” it’s a clear sign that they are not talking specifically about the person to whom they hit the “respond” button, but that they are making a larger observation applicable to a larger group than JUST LITTLE OLE YOU!
In my case, my point is that those who spend a lot of time worrying about — and making political/blog traffic hay out of — the civil rights of al-Awlaki — are pretty dismissive of extra-judicial assassination of American citizens that happens all the fucking time in this country. But hey, that wasn’t what the THREAD was about in your mind, so I wasn’t playing fair by bringing it up because only YOU get to decide what is and isn’t relevant here, right? Speaking of being “dismissive.”
And since I never said that OWS couldn’t criticize police brutality or any of the other sweeping assertions you tried to pin on me, your arguments (or would that be “superior mind-reading abilities?”) were dismissed as idiotic non sequiturs.As is your parsing of al-Alwaki’s citizenship and why that should have kept him from being targeted overseas — for reasons that others have laid out very well.
Someone is being “willfully stupid” here, but it’s not me.
I didn’t object to your comment that “We trivialize (or at least ignore) extra-judicial killing of innocent Americans on American soil ALL THE DAMN TIME.” Yes, I fucking agree! Yes, I think it’s a huge fucking problem!
But Boudreau didn’t bring that up. I addressed his comments. You responded by bringing up police brutality and by ranting about Greenwald and the Professional Left. You did not address any argument that was actually in play. So yes, that is, in fact, a non sequitur.
I am not dismissive of police brutality and murder. It’s just that it’s not the same problem, and I’ve already explained why I think it’s different in the comment of mine to which you most recently responded. Respond to that if you like.
I also explained in my same comment (though I should have made it more clear in my initial comment) that the remark about dismissing the Occupy movement’s complaints about police brutality were about another post on this blog and not your comments.
I seriously don’t know why we’re arguing. I feel like we’re talking right past each other.
Hug it out, y’all. Hug.it.out.
Okay, Kerry, I may have been mistaken in assuming that your initial comments about Greenwald were an attempt to put his opinions on me. That does happen around here, and it’s happened on this very thread. Maybe you didn’t mean to, and if I was mistaken, then I do apologize. I hope that you can see why I would see it that way.
Again, I have admired your comments in the past, and I take back my take-back on that. I hope we can have better conversations in the future.
I’m sure we can.
So do sub-threads just bottom-out here after too many responses to responses to responses, etc. or is there no “Respond” link at the end of that ridiculousness between myself and That Troll With The Pony-Fetish because we intentionally got cut off?
No, it’s just that it’s no use arguing with somebody who doesn’t have a good grip on how the world works. That’s all.
Great, thanks for not answering my question!
Thank you, Kerry. I feel like I should say that I do like your initial comment on this post (not the one to me, your real first one on this thread). Your point about the draft is solid as fuck, and I could not agree more.
(By the way, I couldn’t respond to your comment directly. Again, is this because it got to too many responses to responses and it just automatically cuts it off or what?)