Saturday, June 18, 2005
Democrat Sort Of Compares Republican Stuff To Nazis
Republican Directly Compares Democrat Stuff To Nazis
Ok, as usual someone said something, and the other side blew it way out of proportion. For those of you unaware, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) said the following on the Senate floor last week some time:
When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here -- I almost hesitate to put them in the record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report: On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold....On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.
If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.
He did not say that, as has been widely reported, Gitmo is just like the gulags. He made an historical indirect correlation. Further, to make his actual point, he said the following:
The President could declare the United States will apply the Geneva Conventions to the war on terrorism. He could declare, as he should, that the United States will not, under any circumstances, subject any detainee to torture, or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. The administration could give all detainees a meaningful opportunity to challenge their detention before a neutral decisionmaker. Such a change of course would dramatically improve our image and it would make us safer. I hope this administration will choose that course. If they do not, Congress must step in.
That was what he was really trying to get across, not that our soldiers or evil or we are Nazis. He was merely saying that he's a cozy globalists and wants to treat everyone like a cuddly teddybear.
Now, as the Republican and The Right are losing their collective minds over Durbin’s remarks, I’d like to throw out something else.
Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) compared Democrats' attempts to keep the filibuster to Hitler's moves in 1942 in a floor speech in the Senate.
The following is a transcript of the particular section of the senator's floor speech, from the closed-captioned text taken by the Senate.
And we shouldn't go mucking around in this institution and changing the way we've done things,
particularly when it comes to the balance of powers between the three branches of government. And the independence of one of those branches of the judiciary. We must tread very carefully before we go radically changing the way we do things that has served this country well, and we have radically changed the way we do things here. Some are suggesting we're trying to change the law, we're trying to break the rules. Remarkable. Remarkable hubris. I mean, imagine, the rule has been in place for 214 years that this is the way we confirm judges. Broken by the other side two years ago, and the audacity of some members to stand up and say, how dare you break this rule. It's the equivalent of Adolph Hitler in 1942 "I’m in Paris. How dare you invade me. How dare you bomb my city? It's mine." this is no more the rule of the senate than it was the rule of the senate before not to filibuster. It was an understanding and agreement, and it has been abused. In a sense, what we see here on the floor of the united states
{16:30:35} (MR. SANTORUM) { NOT AN OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT }
Here, he compares, I think more directly than in Durbin’s case (but semantically it could be argued compellingly either way) Democrats to Nazis.
My point is not that D=Good R=Bad; as a general rule, I don’t vote for people in either party. My point is that, once again, here we have blatant hypocrisy. And hypocrisy pisses me off.
As a further disclaimer, I’d like to say that I don’t particularly like either of the above Senators.
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Republican Directly Compares Democrat Stuff To Nazis
Ok, as usual someone said something, and the other side blew it way out of proportion. For those of you unaware, Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) said the following on the Senate floor last week some time:
When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here -- I almost hesitate to put them in the record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report: On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold....On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.
If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.
He did not say that, as has been widely reported, Gitmo is just like the gulags. He made an historical indirect correlation. Further, to make his actual point, he said the following:
The President could declare the United States will apply the Geneva Conventions to the war on terrorism. He could declare, as he should, that the United States will not, under any circumstances, subject any detainee to torture, or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment. The administration could give all detainees a meaningful opportunity to challenge their detention before a neutral decisionmaker. Such a change of course would dramatically improve our image and it would make us safer. I hope this administration will choose that course. If they do not, Congress must step in.
That was what he was really trying to get across, not that our soldiers or evil or we are Nazis. He was merely saying that he's a cozy globalists and wants to treat everyone like a cuddly teddybear.
Now, as the Republican and The Right are losing their collective minds over Durbin’s remarks, I’d like to throw out something else.
Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) compared Democrats' attempts to keep the filibuster to Hitler's moves in 1942 in a floor speech in the Senate.
The following is a transcript of the particular section of the senator's floor speech, from the closed-captioned text taken by the Senate.
And we shouldn't go mucking around in this institution and changing the way we've done things,
particularly when it comes to the balance of powers between the three branches of government. And the independence of one of those branches of the judiciary. We must tread very carefully before we go radically changing the way we do things that has served this country well, and we have radically changed the way we do things here. Some are suggesting we're trying to change the law, we're trying to break the rules. Remarkable. Remarkable hubris. I mean, imagine, the rule has been in place for 214 years that this is the way we confirm judges. Broken by the other side two years ago, and the audacity of some members to stand up and say, how dare you break this rule. It's the equivalent of Adolph Hitler in 1942 "I’m in Paris. How dare you invade me. How dare you bomb my city? It's mine." this is no more the rule of the senate than it was the rule of the senate before not to filibuster. It was an understanding and agreement, and it has been abused. In a sense, what we see here on the floor of the united states
{16:30:35} (MR. SANTORUM) { NOT AN OFFICIAL TRANSCRIPT }
Here, he compares, I think more directly than in Durbin’s case (but semantically it could be argued compellingly either way) Democrats to Nazis.
My point is not that D=Good R=Bad; as a general rule, I don’t vote for people in either party. My point is that, once again, here we have blatant hypocrisy. And hypocrisy pisses me off.
As a further disclaimer, I’d like to say that I don’t particularly like either of the above Senators.
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