richboy playboy Pedro looks forward

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5488187

Oh my.

Atman  (1000+ posts)        Sun Apr-19-09 09:23 AM
Original message

For the life of me, I just don't understand this "We must look forward" line of thinking.

Rahm just repeated it on "This Week." I thought I was listening to a Republican. EVERY crime is committed in THE PAST. Why don't you and me and everyone with a court case just tell the judge "Your honor, retribution isn't the answer, we must look forward." It is absurd! You PUNISH criminal activity, you don't "look forward" out of fear of upsetting the criminals. I just don't get it.

I am so far very, very disappointed in the new administration. But I hold out hope that the freight train is moving on this one, and it may well become out of Obama's ability to control it.

We can only hope.

truth2power (1000+ posts)      Sun Apr-19-09 10:10 AM
Response to Original message
 
6. You beat me to it, Atman. I've been fuming about this for the past hour...

How in holy hell can anyone who's been through law school and who's taught Constitutional Law not be embarrassed to promote this nonsense? Rham, of course, is just carrying the President's message.

I think I'm going to steal a car, and when I'm caught and put on trial I'll accuse the Court of engaging in retribution, and furthermore, I've resolved that I won't steal any more cars. Yeah, that'll work!

I have not seen ONE argument, ANYWHERE, that addresses this issue other than to say we need to wait a few years, that Obama probably has some brilliant plan to get these guys after all. BS on stilts, as far as I'm concerned. I GUARANTEE you that in two years these same individuals will want to wait another two or three years, and on and on.

I've said it before; by this way of thinking there never should have been any Nuremberg trials. All the crimes of the Nazis were committed in the past, and without a doubt there were many people who wanted retribution as well as justice.

Apparently this is not reason enough to bring people to trial anymore.

anigbrowl (1000+ posts)      Sun Apr-19-09 08:04 PM
Response to Original message
 
28. I'll bet that's not the only thing you don't understand

Look, the world is not going to stop turning for us to conduct our self-examination, nor are they nearly as interested in the outcome as some here seem to believe. There are still daily present and future challenges that need to be addressed, from the state of the economy to conduct of the wars inherited by the administration, one well-founded and the other not.

Resolving the torture issue is important...but the administration's primary job is to govern the country. And if you look at other countries which have disgraceful or shameful political episodes (which is almost all of them) you'll find that it's invariably a slow process. The reality is that the more idealistic you are, the greater your disappointment is going to be because you will never get everything you dream of - any more than the right-wingers were ever going to get the instant gratification of us dropping nuclear warheads on Mecca or something.

there will eventually be prosecutions and some kind of resolution, but it will be slow and incomplete. That's the nature of the world. Comparisons with Nuremberg are sophomoric and stupid; while I'm passionately opposed to what the Bush regime did, it is demeaning to those who died in WW2 to draw a direct comparison. The Bush administration were pikers compared to the Nazis and to a lot of other regimes in other countries since. Those who say the US had a fascist government for the last 8 years and suchlike have never actually lived in a truly repressive country. the Bush administration was bad, but frankly the US got off very lightly indeed.

Atman  (1000+ posts)        Sun Apr-19-09 08:28 PM
Response to Reply #28
 
29. You used the made-up word "suchlike," therefore I reject your entire post.

Sorry.

I know it's just me. But my son uses it, too, and I've told him to stop it. It's not a word. I don't know where it comes from, but the current linguistic trend of using "suchlike" makes my stomach turn. "SUCHLIKE?" WTF is suchlike? Your case was specious from the beginning, but when you used "suchlike" I lost all interest in what you have to say.

Yeah, yeah.

Dream on, primitives.

[JohnnyReb]

"How in holy hell can anyone who's been through law school and who's taught Constitutional Law not be embarrassed to promote this nonsense?"

He has never released his grades......maybe he's still stupid? We can't be sure he knows anything.

[BlueStateSaint]

maybe he's still stupid?

Maybe?  MAYBE?  MAYBE????

In math logic, this is called a "given."

Your statement should read, "Of course he's still stupid."

(I'm withholding the BS, though.)

[asdf2231]

Atman  (1000+ posts)        Sun Apr-19-09 09:23 AM
Original message

For the life of me, I just don't understand this "We must look forward" line of thinking.

Rahm just repeated it on "This Week." I thought I was listening to a Republican. EVERY crime is committed in THE PAST. Why don't you and me and everyone with a court case just tell the judge "Your honor, retribution isn't the answer, we must look forward." It is absurd! You PUNISH criminal activity, you don't "look forward" out of fear of upsetting the criminals. I just don't get it.

I am so far very, very disappointed in the new administration. But I hold out hope that the freight train is moving on this one, and it may well become out of Obama's ability to control it.

We can only hope.

Yeah... good luck with that moron.