Look, I genuinely like Patterico, but with this gem, he broke out the big red nose and funny shoes for what may be one of the dumbest posts ever:
Democrat blogger John Cole is appalled that I have opened a debate on the morality of waterboarding admitted mass murderers for less than three minutes if it were 100% certain to save thousands of lives. To express his disgust, he solicits his readers’ opinions as to whether he should physically assault me. Most agree that he should.
Where was this alleged ‘solicitation?’ This hypothetical mocking his ridiculous torture hypothetical:
If a right wing blogger is about to write another stupid post attempting to justify the use of torture, would it be ok for me to run over and kick them in the junk, rendering them unable to blog?
Patterico- it was just a hypothetical, boss. And just like your hypothetical, neither is rooted in reality (not to mention the hypothetical never even mentioned you).
And since I like you, I will just assume you were joking.
*** Update ***
Apparently I lack the class of the great one:
But there’s nothing irresponsible about talking to that crowd about committing violent acts on conservatives. I’m sure if Michelle Malkin ever did the reverse — “mocking” a liberal by talking about kicking him, while addressing an audience predisposed to think liberals are less than human — John Cole would take it in stride as just joshin’.
Of course, that would never happen. Because Michelle Malkin has far more class than John Cole ever will.
What is more absurd than absurd? Absurder? And is there another Michelle Malkin out there?
At any rate, before he gets another set of the vapors, someone please tell Patterico that Jeff Goldstein at PW has never actually cock-slapped anyone.
jake
Shit, stop! A wave of hot, snotty tears just gushed out of my monitor!
A Different Matt
I bet reading Patterico’s post was like a stroll down memory lane for you, huh John?
calipygian
I think Patterco just needs a swift kick in the junk. A swift kick in the junk is just a manly man “just kidding”, right?
John Cole
It is absurd. That really is all you can say. Although a kick in the junk could be construed as just a frat boy prank to blow off steam.
jake
Upon further review, I find that the Defendant, John Cole, was unjustifiably mean and nasty to the Plaintiff.
Plaintiff states:
Clearly this could not be seen as anything but a complete repudiation of waterboarding. In this hypopathetical the plaintiff creates the following scenario:
A suspected terrorist is captured, tried and found guilty. Before that point he cannot be “known” to be a “mass-murdering terrorist,” therefore it is only after capture, trial and conviction that he is in fact “known,” to be guilty. Next the plaintiff states that it would have to be “100% certain” that the convicted murder had knowledge of an attack. Considering the time it would take to gather evidence, select a jury and try the accused, it is impossible to imagine that the convicted murderer would have any knowledge that would meet plaintiff’s 100% certainty test.
In his second hypothetical Plaintiff makes his opposition to torture for any reason even clearer. He creates this scenario:
the morality of waterboarding admitted mass murderers for less than three minutes if it were 100% certain to save thousands of lives.
jake
In this scenario the mass-murderer is caught, confesses his own guilt, states that he knows where the next attack will take place, the number of lives likely to be lost (at least two thousand according to the Plaintiff) but, for whatever reason, the mass-murderer won’t tell his captors information necessary to prevent the attack.
If anything, this is even less likely than the first scenario and I suspect the Plaintiff is pulling someone’s leg.
Defendant is sentenced to give Plaintiff a cookie.
Ned R.
Does it have to be a good cookie?
John Cole
A cookie? What if, in the hypothetical, I had “threatened” the hypothetical blogger with an atomic wedgie?
Jim
>if it were 100% certain to save thousands of lives.
Given this premise, why not just go midieval on his ass straight off? Gouge out his eyes, break his kneecaps, rape and torture his wife and family. Think of the thousands of lives at stake!
Better hypotheticals, please.
Robert Johnston
Nah. I’m thinking a tracking cookie. Or, for a more physical representation, an anklet monitor.
RSA
Think of the hypothetical billions of lives at stake–all the people the terrorists might hypothetically kill, and all of their hypothetical descendants they are prevented from having. We’re talking big numbers here. It would be unethical not to torture.
srv
Since the last post was so successfull, does anyone have a photoshop with a clown dressed as an British Magistrate?
John Cole
SRV- I deleted that comment. I don’t like it when people mention people’s profession in the comments. I remember what happened to Thers and others, and I will not allow anyone to mention what other bloggers do for a living (even though all you said was “Isn’t Patterico a _____”). What they do to pay the bills has nothing to do with their blogging, especially since I don;t recall Patterico using that as a part of his argument.
Others who freely advertise what they do and where are a different story.
srv
OK, I thought he talked about his job on his blog, but somebody went after him and tried to identify him.
jake
You wouldn’t have make sure the cookie was cat-hair free before delivering it to the hypothetical Plaintiff.
Actually, this little incident has proven a long-held theory about the Torture-philes. They really are scared shitless by the hint of physical harm.
Some guy looks at them a second too long? O noes! He’s gonna hurt me!
Someone makes a comment that could apply to any number of bloggers? O noes! He’s gonna hurt me!
Knowledge that someone somewhere on the planet might want to blow something up in his country? I kan haz Valium plez?
Pusses. Maybe you should give him a pacifier.
Jim
>It would be unethical not to torture.
Amen. But I have to say, that guy with the red hot poker and the chainsaw is creeping me out a little. Seems just a little too … enthusiastic. Doesn’t think much of the 100% rule, either.
CaseyL
When I was growing up, everyone knew that the boys who swaggered the most and boasted the loudest about how tough they were and picked on smaller, weaker kids were cowards and bullies. So I don’t think it’s surprising that the same thing turns out to be true of warbloggers and torture-philes.
The Bush Administration has been pretty useful in one respect: most of the bullies and cowards were attracted to him like iron filings to a magnet. They’ve taken themselves out of the mainstream and can’t ever get back, because blog archives are forever.
norbizness
Evidently having his absurd, fact-less hypothetical demolished in multiple Obsidian Wings posts and comments left him alone in the desert, looking to avenge his hypothetical nutsac.
Patterico
The fact that I found your post hysterical and stupid does not mean I took your comment as a threat.
But I did see it as an incitement to your commenters to talk gleefully about committing violence on a hated Republican.
There’s something creepy about that. And you did it deliberately.
Again, if Malkin did something like that, you’d hit the roof.
John Cole
Jokingly asking a hypothetical if it would be ok to “kicksomeone in the junk” does not even pass the laugh meter as an “incitement to commit violence.”
And it isn’t even ‘creepy.’
craigie
When did “for less than three minutes” become part of the dancing on the head of a pin required to support torture? I missed that one completely.
“It can’t be torture – the egg timer never even went off!”
dogrose
Patterico, you’re taking offense at “incitement… to talk gleefully about committing violence on a hated Republican.”
Meanwhile, you’ve posited — and repeatedly defended — a quantumly unlikely hypothetical in defense of actual, physical torture, just to “expose the hypocrisy” of those who don’t buy into your argument.
Who’s the hypocrite?
Patterico
Yeah, John, who would ever have thought that your comment would have gotten one of your commenters to talk about punching Ann Coulter in the Adam’s Apple?
That there is a shocker that that happened.
Perry Como
I bet we could get KSM to say he flew to Sabbat on a broomstick too!
heywood jablomy
To put it plainly, using a word Patterico favors and dispenses on his blog with fatuous abandon, Patterico is lying about Cole’s post. Cole in no way incites violence in any sense that cannot not be dismissed as utterly ironic. Moreover, Cole’s ironic call to a figurative “kick in the oysters” is in no way aimed at Patterico by name under any reading of Cole’s post.
So Patterico is lying.
(He is also playing the victim card, a sadly pathetic sidelight.)
dogrose
Umm… Patty, you might want to consult these folks.
jake
Cripes, is the baby still crying? Wait, I know what’s wrong with him:
Look, if you’d see things the way Pats sees things you’d know it is unfair to expect him, as he sits at his computer, soaked in the wee of fear to properly process stimuli. EVERYTHING is a threat. In the future, try to avoid writing anything that contains the letters P, A, T, E, R, I, C or O. It might be seen as some sort of code.
Advocating torture = Purely hypothetical discussion.
Joking about a kick in the hypothetical nads of a hypothetical poster = Scary, boo!
But I forgot, the man is beset by demons and no one will believe him when he says they’re real and now John Cole – using his evil Democrat powers – has told all his readers to find him and kick him in the bollocks! Oh, what a world, what a world.
I think I know why John switched parties. He wanted his balls back.
dougie smooth
Now that’s a laugh riot.
heywood jablomy
The bankruptcy of Patterico’s whining is gloriously underscored by his Ann Coulter cherry-pick from Cole’s comments. Coulter has spoken wistfully of the blowing up of the New York Times (a large building crowded with people in Times Square). Of course she was just kidding, right, Patterico …?
Perry Como
You know, I actually wonder if Patterico would agree with this:
I would personally waterboard KSM if I was 100% sure that it would save lives. I would then proudly turn myself in to be prosecuted for torturing someone and let a jury decide my fate.
Given Patterico’s profession, I would assume he knows what an affirmative defense is.
slippytoad
Where do people come up with this silly shit?
Conservatives: give it up, morons. There is NO POSSIBLE SCENARIO in all of the Universe, where you could be morally justified in torture. It is Never. Going. To. Happen. Let’s pick apart this stupid, juvenile delusion piece by piece:
“Admitted mass murderer.” Convicted or admitted? If he’s convicted, what is he doing out of prison? How would he know about a scenario that was . . .
“100% certain to save lives”
This would mean that he has set up a ticking time bomb, or knows someone who has. If he’s set up the time bomb and knows where it is, what makes you think he’s going to give that information up to you, or that it is going to be of any use to you when you get it? If he knows someone who has, how is he conspiring with that someone. Remember, we’re talking about an admitted mass murderer, not a convicted mass murderer. We don’t know if he’s just talking bullsmack or not. Regardless, this information will be of very little use to us, especially if he’s . . .
“Waterboarded for less than three minutes.” If he knows it’s only going to be three minutes, and he’s Dr. Frickin’ Evil, he can just wait out your moral incertitude. If he’s not, it’s far more likely that he’s going to start telling you lies and hysterical misleading nonsense.
If you’re 100% certain that your waterboarding will save lives, you shouldn’t need to waterboard someone. If you aren’t, you don’t know for sure and may be getting bad information.
Putting all that aside, we live in a nation governed by the RULE OF LAW. In the 1940’s we sentenced Japanese soldiers to decades in prison for the crime of waterboarding our troops. Either we have to pardon them and give them compensation for those decades of prison time, or we have to suck it up and admit that in no circumstance do we put our juvenile revenge fantasies above the rule of the law that we all agreed to.
There is no moral case for waterboarding. It is immoral. it is illegal. It is torture. Persons engaging in waterboarding, and persons who have authorized it, should be put on trial for war crimes and punished accordingly as we punished those long-ago Japanese interrogators. End. Of. Discussion.
swj719
I’m pretty sure that just proved Patterico’s point…
Incertus (Brian)
You’re arguing dishonestly to justify torture, and you’re getting twisted about that joke? How does your head not explode from the hypocrisy? Seriously–I want to know just how you manage to pull that trick off.
You cannot claim the moral high ground, nor do you have the slightest excuse to be offended at this.
grumpy realist
*sigh*….heck, we keep talking about how “medieval” this all is, but I’d rather take my chances with medieval jurists and law. I hate these modern pissants who as soon as anyone says “BOO!” to them the only thing they can think about is tearing down over 1000 years of legal precedent and checks and balances so they can torture people. It may make YOU feel safer, Patty, it certainly doesn’t ME.
I think anyone who thinks that “waterboarding suspects” is a Good Thing should have it done to himself/herself. And none of this “only until I feel uncomfortable.” Do it until the little bugger squeals Uncle and admits to being in the pay of Osama, the Syrians, the Saudis, is responsible for the assassination of J.F.K., the attempted assassination of the Pope, and Hoffa’s dissappearance. Because if we waterboard long enough, I’m sure that what I could get….
JGabriel
Patterico:
Really?
This is what passes for a realistically debatable scenario in wingnutopia?
Perry Como
Here’s a counter hypothetical for greater wingnuttia:
Would you be willing to go to jail if you were 100% sure you would save lives?
As a follow up:
If not, why do you hate America?
dougie smooth
swj719:
If his point was that he has no sense of humor, then yes.
Patterico
JGabriel,
You reveal that you haven’t read my post. No, it isn’t.
Ergo, you’re sounding off about something you have no idea about.
You’re like the idiots who denounce movies they haven’t seen.
Par for the course here.
I believe I said recently, here:
“My God, you people are idiots.”
And I was right!
Psycheout
Be careful, John. You’re getting shrill. And I say that as a friend.
Patterico
Same goes for slippytoad. His trump card: it’s illegal!!!! If he had read my post(s) he would know that is irrelevant to my hypo.
Morons.
cd6
Answer the question Patterico:
Would you let a man put his penis in your pooper if it would 100% stop a terrorist attack?
MobiusKlein
Why all the squeamishness of stopping the waterboarding at under three minutes? Surely if KSM’s waterboarding for that time is justified, waterboarding for four minutes to prevent mass murder is justified. Likewise, why should the permission to waterboard stop at the saving of more than 1000 lives? Surely Patterico must have some sense that 999 deaths is nearly the same as 1000.
As for the restriction of 100% certainty – when in the world are things that certain. Would I be one to complain if the certainty required before waterboarding was 99.5%? NO!
So my hypothetical is this –
Is it OK to waterboard KSM for 4 minutes, 54 seconds to save 576 lives, if we are 99.44% certain it would save those lives? Serious answers only, please.
grumpy realist
And no, Patterico, it is NOT morally acceptable to waterboard “someone for 3 minutes in order to 100% thousands of lives.”
Because as soon as you decide that, you have stepped over the line. There is no morality left–there is only utility.
If 3 minutes does not work, then why not 4? Why not an hour? Why not however long it takes?
And why stop at waterboarding? Why not a blowtorch? Why not crushing the knuckles or other parts of the body?
And why 100%? What if it’s only 90% sure? Or 80%?
And why stop at the individual? If it is “moral” to torture in the above scenario, certainly it is “moral” to torture that person’s nearest and dearest as well, if that will case the information to be more quickly forthcoming, is it not?
This is the problem. Once you allow crimes against humanity to occur because of your lust for “security”, you have no reason to stop and draw any line. And you WILL go over it. There has never been any instance of an authority in history, who when deciding to use torture for a particular, supposedly special case, did not end up using it elsewhere as well.
Those who advocate torture for the sake of security have shown exactly what they are–people without morals, without ethics, without empathy or an understanding of human rights.
I’m ashamed of you.
stogie
Y’know, I just can’t believe where this country is going. I wonder if the right wing just has no sense of history (that’s be pretty ironic, since so many on the right self-identify as conservatives. Don’t they know what they’re supposed to conserve?). I read and hear so much about patriotism from people that obviously have no idea why the United States came into being (hint: it has something to do with a reaction to a lawless executive power). I hear so much about values from people who fit the definition of a fool: they know the price of everything and the value of nothing. I hear about “liberty” and “freedom” for everyone from those who work and argue to restrict those noble ideals to only those who they trust to preserve the murderous, exploitative status quo. I wonder why they talk so loudly about Loving America when they actively undermine everything that is good about it.
alphie
Be nice to Patterico.
He’s not used to convincing to logical people.
He just throws them offa his juries.
Longhairedweirdo
What I don’t get about this is the incredible intellectual dishonesty of the question.
“If you already knew the outcome, and knew that it would be okay, would you do something that otherwise violated your morals?”
What possible point can be served by asking that question? How will it advance the discussion in an honest and meaningful way?
You might as well ask the question “If we assume that I’m right, on at least a nastily pragmatic level, will you admit that I’m right (at least on a nastily pragmatic level) or not?”
It’s not a question that leads to further discussion in good faith.
heywood jablomy
If the liar Patterico finds this place so benighted by “idiots,” one wonders why he chooses to spend his important time here. Perhaps he’s already made the rounds of wingnuttia and posted scathingly about how they are “idiots” for blogging about movies they haven’t seen.
Hey Patterico: ass + door = way out.
stogie
Forgive me for posting again, but I wrote about my dislike of people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing. It occurs to me that Patterico’s post which sparked this discussion is a prime example of this phenomenon. What he’s doing is bargaining like a used car salesman. He offers a 100% guarantee. He offers a 1000 life rebate. He makes easy terms: “It’s only three minutes, folks!”
What he apparently doesn’t comprehend is that there is no even trade for one’s values. Values are your foundation, Patterico. And once they’re gone, they’re gone forever, and the whole structure you’ve built upon them can’t stand for long without a foundation.
You’re asking America to sell its birthright for a mess of pottage, and you will surely be reviled for it.
alphie
Some folks already sold out their American birthright once.
Y’all know who.
Tsulagi
So let me get this straight, some guy who likely thinks every red blooded American patriot should be concealed carrying a mini waterboard kit if opportunity knocks gets his feelings hurt. Over a suggestion the next blithering idiot pushing a ticking time bomb scenario get a “kick in the junk”. Plaintive cries are heard.
Ooookay. With steel like that, how could we lose in the GWOT? LOL
In addition to the big red nose and funny shoes, I think he also needs a tricycle so he can really get up to speed. There’s ticking time bombs to find! Or hypothesize about. Or talk about. Whatever. It’s hard out there for a clown.
MFB
Instead of all these silly hypotheticals about torture, surely here we have a much more important, concrete issue.
Some cruel — brutal — insanely insensitive person has surgically removed Mr. Patterico’s senses of humour and proportion.
I cannot reveal my sources for fear of endangering our agents in the field, but Dr. Evil is the prime suspect.
Anne Laurie
Patterico wouldn’t be quite so annoying if he were actually afraid for his junk in John Cole’s blog-presence. But he and JC have enough previous history for Cole to say that he “genuinely likes” Patterico, which means that even if Patterico is as big a physical & moral coward as most Reichtards, when he accuses Cole of “threats!!!!11!!!” he’s arguing in bad faith.
Jody
This.
And especially this. Right now I’m ashamed of the entire right wing in this country. Look what you’ve brought us to. Just look.
VidaLoca
This nails it.
And then to watch one of these paragons of moral certainty, these heroic apologists for torture, run around pissing himself when he’s ridiculed — priceless.
Hey Patterico — you can’t even take it when people laugh at you and call you an ass. How much real pain could you stand?
Strong. Smart.
cleek
oh take it easy on the poor Patterico, he’s only
trollingtrying to stimulate discussion.Incertus (Brian)
I wish it had occurred to me last night, but it strikes me now that Patterico is the same kind of person referenced in this piece I blogged about late last night about people who feel they’re moral and so who are willing to compromise, or cheat because of what they consider the greater good. Patterico is hunting around for a hypothetical under which he can justify a morally repugnant action despite being, according to many, a decent human being himself.
Tim F.
Yup. It doesn’t surprise me that Patterico fails to grok the basic point of this response.
More than that, Patterico belies his entire premise with his 100% certainty clause. Do interrogators ever have 100% certainty about anything? No. Human beings usually don’t have perfect foreknowledge of the future either.
If we’re allowed to stipulate ridiculous assumptions then pretty much anything can be justified. I can imagine any number of hypotheticals where Patterico having sex with ten men, and believably faking his orgasms, unquestionably outweighs the horrendous, guaranteed-if-he-doesn’t alternative. Krakatoa. The Armenian genocide. Pearl Harbor. This isn’t meaningful debate. It’s a cynical word game by a formerly decent guy trying to square his residual conscience with the deep dark hole down which he has followed his party.
Jody
The best part about this are the other posts he’s now made on the subject.
I think we created a monster.
Patsy
O noes! You’re threating me again! Summon the militia, release the hounds, make sure the moat is full, call a waaahmbulance!
RSA
Patterico said:
The insularity of the blogosphere. . . Here’s a nice summary of the moral issues.
Libby Spencer
You know I used to like Patterico myself and read him regularly back in the days when Carnival of the Vanities was in its heydey. I rarely agreed with him but he used to at least make coherent arguments for his case. It’s very sad to see him fall so low as to defend Malkin, a creature who, just off the top of my head, repeatedly posted the personal information of bunch of college kids which led to an avalanche of serious death threats, led the charge on the NYT photog who took the pix of Cheney’s castle in MD, which similarly led to real death threats, and quite possibly caused the death of that poor guy in Iraq, whose name I forget, when she pursued her endless quest to prove he didn’t exist. Those are just the more egregious incidents. And to feign outrage over a snarky remark about Coulter, who has ‘hypothetically’ wished that the NYT would get blown up and a Supreme Court judge be poisoned is just pathetic.
I hadn’t read him for a long time when JC sent us to the insipid post in question, but it reminded me why I took him off my reading list.
Patterico, sorry that was a ridiculous post and the simple answer to your hypothetical is a resounding NO. There is no way to morally or intellectually condone torture and the arguments being made for it are morally and intellectually bereft. For you to try to turn JC and the commenters’ mockery into some kind of incitement to a mass threat of physical violence just makes you look even sillier. You clearly need one of these. I’m sorry to see you fall so low as to cloak yourself in the mantle of the false victimhood of wingnuttia. You used to be better than that.
Zifnab
Jamil Hussien. At least one person in Iraq who has every justification to hate Americans enough to want to kick them all in the junk. Honestly, if he kicked me in the junk right now, as proxy against Malkin, I wouldn’t feel bad about it. I’d just have the urge to pay it forward.
jrg
After reading Patterico’s whining screeds, I don’t think he has much “junk” to worry about.
You must see that as a real problem since you’ve used John’s joking hypothetical to start an idiotic interblog flame war.
Just out of curiosity, Patterico, has a Democratic blogger ever physically attacked a conservative blogger? Ever? I’m trying to figure out if you are genuinely concerned, or if you just like being seen as a thin-skinned, effeminate, perpetual victim.
grandpa john
Why are we discussing morality and wing nut bloggers in the same thread. there is no connection between then.
PK
Patterico
Screw you and your hypotheticals. Asking dumb questions and whining like a bitch over a joke. What is it with you rightwing assholes? You pose all sorts of obsene hypothetical scenarios to justify torturing people and then cry like a bunch of babies over words. And yeah I would support 65 mins of waterbording of people like you Malkin, Coulter, Limbaugh and all the rightwing nutjobs etc if it proved 100% that it would lead to nothing except severe pain.
Now go into a corner, call mommy and cry how everyone is being mean to you!
chopper
hey, i’d waterboard myself if i was 100% certain it would stop a nucular holocaust. i mean, 100% certainty is great, innit? aren’t unrealistic hypotheticals just so much fun?
Johnny Pez
That we know of.
grumpy realist
Patterico obviously has no knowledge of the foundations of the Western legal system, either. There’s a REASON why torture stopped getting used in “interrogations.” There’s a REASON why we don’t charge people with the same crimes twice. There’s a REASON why we “presume innocence, not guilt.” There’s a REASON why we have a “fruit of the poisoned tree” doctrine.
I suggest he go back and read sufficient legal history to understand exactly how much of Western legal tradition he is throwing out of the window and how little protection he has left for us. Even the medievalists didn’t go this far. Yes, they may have slung around “princeps legibus solutus est”, (the prince is released from the law), but human law was ALWAYS considered trumped by the Law of God and Natural Law. “Quod princeps volt, lex est” has NEVER held true.
And guess where most of the arguments against torture came from? Surprise, surprise, from the Lex Dei and Lex Naturum traditions.
And don’t try to argue that “well, we’re American, we have our own legal traditions.” The HELL we do! Our entire legal system is based on English Common law, plus tons and tons of concepts brought over from Roman law via canon law and medieval law! Our Founding Fathers never mentioned any of this in their writings because to them, getting rid of the legal foundations they depended upon would have been like getting rid of air! The Declaration of Independence has clauses in it I can quote DIRECTLY from various medieval and renaissance jurists–where in the *^%*! do you think we got our legal basis in the first place, anyway?!
I hope Patterico has no connection with any bits of the legal profession because he’s certainly shown he knows diddly-squat about it.
cleek
but it’s totally different this time! it’s existential! burkas! the Caliphate! a handful of malcontents are going to overthrow not just America but all of western civilization!
the Founders, who were 100% right on everything else, all the time, just had no sense of a threat to the existence of the country itself!
waaaahhhhh!!!!!!!!!
Grumpy Code Monkey
The wonderful thing about hypotheticals is that they can be constructed to support any position you like. You just have to ignore reality.
Let’s talk about the real world for a moment. In the real world, you’re not 100% certain about anything. In the real world, torture does not typically result in accurate or actionable information. Most of the current crop of terrorists are quite willing, if not downright eager, to die for their cause; torture’s just another path to martyrdom for many of them.
And I’d really like to see Patterico address the points that have been made repeatedly here and elsewhere about our opinion of waterboarding immediately after WWII, beyond saying, “that’s different, WWII wasn’t the epic struggle for survival that the GWOT is,” with a straight face.
Shinobi
Hypothetically should we be allowed to waterboard Goldstein for 3 minutes so we can be 100% sure he’s never cockslapped anyone, and that he has no immediate plans to cock slap anyone else? If not, how will we ever know the truth! We have to save 100s of people from Goldstein’s cock!!
(And you know I’m joking because that would be giving his cock WAY too much credit)
Zifnab
Is anyone else blown away by the “3 minutes” quip? Would the morality of the situation change if it was 4 minutes? 2 minutes? Where in the hell did 3 minutes come from? Is that the wingnut standard acceptable time for a terrorist to confess to bomb-making plans? If he doesn’t confess in 3 minutes, do we get to kick him in the junk?
Ed Drone
“What is more absurd than absurd? Absurder?”
No, it’s Absurdico!
Ask a simple question, get a simple-minded answer.
Ed
MM
I believe that this comes from the story that we waterboarded KSM for less than 3 minutes.
I’d give Patterico a pat on the head and tell him he’s safe and merely overreacting, but he would probably scream about being assaulted.
jrg
I wonder how long it took him to read John’s original post. I’m guessing it was under 3 minutes, yet it appears as though it is going to cause Patterico a lifetime of hurt feelings.
jcricket
Did anyone else go to ObWi and read Hilzoy’s brilliant takedown of Patterico on this? Her other hypotheticals (esp. the LOTR one) were great and really highlight the absurdity of Paterrico’s “I’m just saying, is all” line of reasoning.
Someone like Patterico should know the weakness of his argument considering the logical fallacy it’s built on top of (at the most fundamental level it’s basically “two wrongs make a right”). Sure, you can sway an average person with such thinking, but that’s not the point, is it? The veracity of one’s argument, especially in cases like this, does not depend on whether a bunch of people would agree to it.
You dance with the devil and the devil don’t change. The devil changes you.
Rudi
(snark alert)
Hey John Cole – Jeff Goldstein wants to know how you look in a cheerleaders outfit or maybe a kilt. it’s easier to attach the electrodes on a kilt as opposed to a cheerleaders skirt.
SueinNM
Ann Coulter on liberals:
Vester: You say you’d rather not talk to liberals at all?
Coulter: I think a baseball bat is the most effective way these days.
(FOX News Channel, DaySide with Linda Vester, 10/6)
When contemplating college liberals, you really regret once again that John Walker is not getting the death penalty. We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors.
Hmmmm. Those peace-loving wingnuts, who would never consider threatening a liberal.
jcricket
Yeah, because drowning for 3 minutes ain’t so bad. It’s nothing like drowning for, say, 4.
And all the “reporters” who say waterboarding isn’t that bad are missing the point. Almost anyone could survive a temporary, one-time instance of some torture technique because you know it’s going to end. It’s the threat of (or actual) repeated torture, the indefinite detention, etc. that make torture what it is.
I would pretty much say anything after being waterboarded, but if that was the only time and I knew I could just walk away, I might not think it was “so bad”.
PATHETIC FUCKING MORONS! The very fact that we’re now debating an individual torture technique is disgusting, and I hate the Republicans more than I can express for doing this to our contry.
Cock Knocker
Look out Patterico! Cock Knocker is on the loose!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_7HVcYjM3Y
caleb
Perhaps we could put this idea to use.
srv
I’d love to go back and see what you and your fanboys said about Farhenheit 911.
MNPundit
He called him a “Democrat” blogger, pesumably instead of Democratic.
Bzzrt wrong. Take your ball and go home.
srv
Values are not something he would know much about.
Skullhead
waterboarding admitted mass murderers for less than three minutes if it were 100% certain to save thousands of lives.
How in the wide world of fuck is such certainty to be proved?
Jesus wept, that man is stupid.
Live. Is not. A movie.
Now you know.
Larv
jcricket – I’ll second the ObWi recommendation, but that post is by Katherine, not Hilzoy (Katherine used to be a front-pager, but decided it was taking too much time away from real life. She occasionally still posts on torture and related issues, but does so through hilzoy’s account, thus the confusion.)
Robert Johnston
dougie smooth:
Being the one who made the original statement, I’d say more of a junior-high-grade-humor reflection on the possible. Patterico’s junk, if it exists, is clearly way too small to make a good target for kicking, and almost certainly is so numb from disuse as to make even a successful kick nondisabling. Try to kick him in the nuts and he’ll keep on blogging.
Speaking of nuts, I’m thinking at this point that Patterico is completely off his and deserves our sympathy, not our mocking. Of course, I’m not a good enough person to do what’s right in this situation, so rather than sympathize I think I’ll grab the popcorn and watch him continue to piddle himself with fear over being mocked for being profoundly stupid.
jcricket
Larv – oops, my bad. Assumed it was hilzoy. At an rate, great post.
chopper
and if a person was 100% certain that the president was about to launch nukes at russia intending to destroy humanity, would it be okay for that person to try to pull a Frank Corder?
when you assume 100% certainty you can hypothetically excuse anything, can’t you?
jenniebee
Ponies!
Tsulagi
Geez, I submitted a comment on Patterico’s site complimenting him on the comedy he provided and heartfelt wishes he return often, but it just didn’t get posted. I feel so rejected and victimized. Some people you just can’t please.
BARRASSO
The old how dare a blog incite violence routine, it reminds me of all the wingnut blogs that cry and wail about how those evil lib blogs coarsen the discourse of our great national debate by using swear words. In the very same comment threads will be dozens of jokes about which gun to use on liberals and which to use on hollywood liberals. But at least they don’t use those awful swear words. The original torture question is so stupid it voids itself.
tBone
What’s Patterico so worried about anyway? Surely the double layer of Depends would cushion the blow of a junk-kick, no?
Aaron
Is it just me, or does this sound like an admission that conservatives think liberals are less then human. is there an implied ‘like we do about you’ here?
Zuzu
See, stuff like that is what gets you laughed at all over the Intertubes.
Tax Analyst
Don’t worry, John. I know I speak for many here who would willingly stand behind you in court and serve as character witnesses as well.
With that in mind you probably won’t get more than 7 or 8 years.
Jay C
And not only that, it provides a wonderful opportunity to change the subject! Away from Patterico’s immoral and at-best-vaguely-defensible apologia for torture as regular interrogation policy, and onto the real, vital, and important issue:
BLOGGERS BEING RUDE!
Which, of course is WAY more of a threat to Truth, Justice and the American Way than anything so trivial as torture: after all, if they weren’t guilty, we wouldn’t be waterboarding them, right?
Jay C
BTW, for those who might be eager to dismiss Hilzoy’s/Katherine’s ObWings takedowns of Patterico’s “torture hypothetical” as the mere ravings of seditious lefty moonbats, here’s an offering from Marc “Armed Liberal” Danziger at Winds of Change making a respectful, but succinct argument against P.’s hypo. No kicks-in-junk mentioned, but a good read nonentheless.
The Mantis
And they say conservatives don’t have a sense of humor…
jcricket
I can hear it now…
Of course on Arbor Day we stop to plant trees, because we love the environment. But by Thanksgiving it’s back to kicking people in the junk.
actor212
Interesting.
I don’t recall Patterico’s moral outrage when Ann Coulter demanded that a Supreme Court Justice John Stevens be assassinated.
Or when Michelle Malkin condoned talk of assassinating Ahmadinejad on her blog by commenters.
But, gee, hypothetically threaten to kick one right wing blogger’s ass…
les
John just used the wrong hypothetical:
If an admitted mass murderer demands that I kick Patterico in the junk, should I do it if it were 100% certain to save thousands of lives.
See, now Patty won’t mind at all.
jcricket
Or the whole “talk to liberals preferably with a bat”.
I hate to play you started it, but, well, you did. And damn near perfected it to.
The outrage is a little much now buddy. Can’t put that genie back in the bottle.
actor212
les Says:
John just used the wrong hypothetical:
If an admitted mass murderer demands that I kick Patterico in the junk, should I do it if it were 100% certain to save thousands of lives.
See, now Patty won’t mind at all.
Quick! Anyone got Kim Jong Il’s phone number?
SPIIDERWEB™
John,
Thank you. You gave me my quote of the day.
Malkin. Hahaha.
Darkrose
Over at your parents’ house?
Midday at the grocery store?
Backstage at the CMA’s?
Patterico
I don’t recall Pattericos moral outrage when Ann Coulter demanded that a Supreme Court Justice John Stevens be assassinated.”
I do. I denounced it immediately, actor212, you dipshit.
You didn’t know that, did you, dumbass? Because you’re used to talking about things you know nothing about..
But you folks have no standing to complain about Ann Coulter. Because as long as it’s an obvious joke, it’s OK by your logic to talk about committing violence to the opposition party.
And it was a joke when she talked about a) bashing liberals like you with baseball bats, b) poisoning Justice Stevens’ creme brulee, and c) blowing up the NYT building.
They were jokes. Stupid, crass, tasteless jokes about violence. Like jokes about kicking conservative bloggers in the nuts, or punching Ann Coulter in the Adam’s apple.
You guys *are* Ann Coulter, just from the left instead of the right.
I knew that you idiots weren’t better than her. But I thought John was.
Oh, and I love the specter of a bunch of pasty anonymous pussies talking about how I’m scared. Y’all show amazing courage every time you tap your little aliases on your computers with your fat trembling fingers. Sorry, but it’s hard to take anonymous internet weenies like you too seriously when you talk about bravery. If any of you wants to attach a real name, profession, and city to your comments, we can talk cowardice then.
jrg
Shorter Patterico: “Whatever happened to political correctness?”
John Cole
Everyone calm down.
Patterico- I honestly have NO clue how you could honestly think the initial quip, in hypothetical format, was an incitement to violence, as it clearly was not, and I am not sure why you think coming over here and exchanging fire with folks and then acting freaked out when they return fire is proof of evil liberals hating on the poor conservatives. I intentionally haven’t bothered reading what your commenters have to say.
Regardless, everyone kick it down a notch.
Patterico
I’m not freaked out, John. I’m contemptuous of those who complain about Ann Coulter joking about whacking liberals with baseball bats, who simultaneously joke about kicking conservatives in the balls.
I have consistently denounced her idiot “jokes” but I am consistent. Your commenters chuckle at jokes about violence towards conservatives but whine about jokes about violence to liberals. I am consistent and denounce both.
I didn’t think you were in the Ann Coulter camp of seeking yuks by joking about violence. So I was wrong.
I guess you didn’t develop this stable of sub-morons by accident.
But don’t worry, I’m not freaked out. If these pantywaists don’t even have the courage to post under their own names, it’s very difficult to imagine them taking any real-world action — unless it’s a “real-world” action to pound your keyboard in impotent rage.
Perry Como
Some of us prefer to engage in hypothetical courage where we present hypothetical situations where we hypothetically have post hoc justifications for our hypothetical actions.
So, hypothetically, if a US government official were to torture a person and save lives[0] in the process, should that official face prosecution for breaking 18 U.S.C. § 2340A?
[0] – or uncover a plot to fly planes into buildings, discover a cure for cancer, etc.
John Cole
I will say this one more time, and if it still does not sink in, I give up:
IT WAS NOT ONLY A HYPOTHETICAL, IT WAS A JOKE.
No one, and I repeat, NO ONE (other than you, apparently), honestly thinks that I was actually going to “kick someone in the junk.” No one, and I repeat, NO ONE, thinks that a joking “kick to the junk” is an act of violence. You are pretty widely read in a circle that takes great effort to get their knickers in a twict about EVERYTHING. If anyone actually thought I was actually attempting to incite violence, malkin, Instapundit, and the whole lunatic fringe of the right wing would have had your post yesterday at the top of memeorandum- “LEFT WING DEMOCRAT BLOGGER THREATENS PATTERICO.”
That is how silly this is- EVEN THEY couldn’t get worked up into their famous faux lather. And this is the group that was getting worked up about bridge players holding up a sign the other day. That should tell you something.
Now I understand acting all aggrieved is fun, but as much as you think I look bad here, I think you look that much sillier.
heywood jablomy
I see the liar Patterico is back, using another of his top expressions — ‘idiots’ — to force feed us his wondrous logic. Patterico takes wild umbrage at Cole’s joshing about anonymous atomic wedgies and swats to the testes. Meanwhile he lionizes the heroic Malkin, stalker of reak children and heroic antagonist to actual low-life-expectancy Iraqi policemen. He does so in his own name, for which he deserves all the glory and approbation that must inevitably adorn this intellectually impressive man’s man.
heywood jablomy
above should read
heywood jablomy
Patterico, even we in the epsilon-sub-moron category can detect an argument that boils down to “nyah nyah, I’m rubber you’re glue.”
The great wingnut crackup continues.
ThymeZone
WTF? The long established traditions of internet anonymity, the only defense we little people have against the crazies of the world out there, is referred to as “pantywaist” behavior? Fuck you very much, I say.
And I say it as one who is probably known non-anonymously by more people here than anyone else on this blog. Fuck you, sir, fuck you very much.
John Cole
In fact, I will make it even easier- this is what I wrote:
Clearly not serious. had I written the following:
That might be a touch closer to what you are saying- but even then, it is clearly a hypothetical, and clearly not something I am advocating.
This is not rocket science.
Patterico
Cole says:
I don’t think that — and you actually goddamn well know I didn’t. You are just pretending I am, to 1) pander to your idiot audience, and 2) take the focus off the stupidity of your own comment.
No rational person thought Ann Coulter was serious when she joked about beating liberals with baseball bats. Nobody thought she was serious when she joked about poisoning Justice Stevens’ creme brulee. Nobody thought she was serious when she joked about blowing up the NYT building.
But her comments were crass, stupid, and classless. As were yours.
And her audience doesn’t consist of entirely rational people, either — which is part of the reason it’s a bad idea to joke about violence.
Same goes for you. Dunno if you’ve noticed, but your fans here aren’t all pinnacles of rationality. Some of them think I am a bigger enemy to this country than the architect of 9/11.
There is no qualitative difference between your idiot comment and her idiot comments. None. And your commenters seem to understand that her comments are over the top, because they whine like scared bitches about her baseball bat comments.
It’s not the end of the world, John. It was just an idiot comment. The classy thing to do would have been to recognize it and acknowledge it. You chose a different road, and so be it.
At least you have the guts to attach your name to what you say.
Patterico
Not serious:
Serious:
But both comments are stupid and worthy of condemnation.
ThymeZone
A “debate” on an absurd proposition … that someone capable of murdering “thousands” of people could made to confess and give up the location of his evil machine in 3 minutes of waterboarding?
How about a debate on whether you have an IQ of over 75? That’s about the most ridiculous fucking thing I have heard in years. What kind of a moron would pull that out of his ass and try to fashion it into a “debate” that supposedly would properly treat any of the issues it supposedly raises?
If your asinine “question” is actually aimed at generating a response, mine would be this: Jack Bauer is fictional, and that shit doesn’t really happen. It seems pretty clear that torture in interrogation is most likely to produce bogus results when the victims start telling their tormentors whatever they think the torturers want to hear. This will result in unwarranted responses which will probably result in more harm than anything the supposed bad guy could have created. It’s a stupid, ugly idea, and you should be ashamed, and take it down, and apologize, and find another line of work because you suck at this.
Patterico
Another anonymous idiot commenting on something he knows nothing about.
It’s based on an ABC News report, dumbass.
John Cole
I give up. If you think saying in a clear hypothetical that “kicking an anonymous someone in the junk” is exactly the same as suggesting someone poison a stated and named someone, there is no way to bridge our disagreement.
Suffice it to say, I think you are wrong.
Patterico
Do any of you morons ever actually read anything before opening your piehole and opining about it?
Patterico
How about “I think a baseball bat is the most effective way these days” to talk to liberals?
Tax Analyst
Wow! Jesus, Patterico is right! What a tremendous example of equivalency. So now he can triumphantly head back to his own site secure in the knowledge that the honor of his junk has been defended from the mass of frothing, jack-booted, junk-kicking, irrational Lib’rul hordes. We are held at bay and chastened by his mastery of logic and ethics.
Shorter: what a putz!
Perry Como
Here’s another hypothetical[0]:
If members of the US government kidnapped a foreign national from his country; transported the person to another nation; tortured that person; discovered the person that they kidnapped was innocent; and released that person in another country with no way to get home. Should those members of the US government be prosecuted for their actions?
[0] – is it illegal to torture a definition?
Patterico
The morons/piehole comment goes to the idiot who didn’t read my post, not to Cole.
But John: creme brulee? You think “creme brulee” was a serious suggestion? (And even if you did, she immediately said it was a joke!)
heywood jablomy
The Patterico argument pyramid:
First lying … then whining … then false equivalences … and now (drum roll) astounding gradiosity:
Oh yes, and a liberal sprinkling of the word ‘idiots.’ Yes indeed, when you’re out of bullets, you throw the gun.
Wingnutistan is in fine hands.
m.croche
Patterico, 6/22/2006: “I am biting down on my rage right now. I’ll resist the temptation to say Ann Coulter was right about where Timothy McVeigh should have gone with his truck bomb. I’ll say only this: it’s becoming increasingly clear to me that the people at the New York Times are not just biased media folks whose antics can be laughed off. They are actually dangerous.”
And in the comments:
# 10. Here’s the little missive I sent:
You disgusting, despicable, self-absorbed little pricks. I wouldn’t piss on any of you if you were on fire. I hope that when the 7th-century animals pull off the next attack that’s successful because of the effective, legal programs you assholes have exposed and rendered useless, the NYT building is the first place hit. Ann Coulter was right, McVeigh should have parked his truck in front of the Times building.
PIGS. FUCKING TREASONOUS PIGS.
Comment by CraigC — 6/22/2006 @ 11:39 pm
#
11. I understand the emotion, believe me. I didn’t quite go the “Ann Coulter was right” route, but (as I said in the post) I understand the temptation. I, like you, am totally enraged.
I want to see an independent prosecutor looking into both the NYT and LAT stories.
Comment by Patterico — 6/22/2006 @ 11:44 pm
33. […] Patterico won’t, but I will say it: Ann Coulter was right about where Timothy McVeigh should have gone with his truck bomb. […]
********************************************************
Just to remember: Timothy McVeigh was a real, live, right-wing wacko who killed hundreds. This is the sort of thing Patterico and company “joke” about? Especially when they’re so very, very angry?
Perry Como
Here’s a moral question, not a legal one:
You are able to deport a foreigner on suspicion of being a terrorist to a country where that person would be tortured.
After the suspected terrorist is beaten for a few hours he admits to attending an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan.
My simple question is this: based on these hypothetical facts, was the beating worth it?
This is a purely moral question.
Perry Como
As a follow up to my last hypothetical, would it be moral to keep the admitted terrorist confined in a 6′ by 3′ cell for 10 months and beat him with shredded cables while you confirmed his terrorist links?
This is just a hypothetical.
Tax Analyst
WOW (again)! You really don’t get it, do you? You see, in the world I exist in an attack with a baseball bat is actually a real and dangerous possibility. It actually DOES happen sometimes and can cause grievous physical harm. This is a tangible and conceivable action with forseeable consequence, so even if you ARE just kidding it could possibly, if only slightly, be misconstrued by a rational person. Weigh this, if you can, against trying to walk up to someone and kicking him in the nuts. It’s an abstract absurdity from the get-go and anyone with a lick of sense can see that at the very moment they read it. Physically it would require more effort and skill than most untrained people have, and lacking the leverage and reach advantage of a bat it would also place the attacker in a precarious position should he fail to connect on his target. Consider your leg broken (hypothetically, of course)if you try that on someone with any street-fighting experience and any reflexes whatsoever, Also, the bat suggestion offers up ALL liberals as potential targets…as opposed to the remote and obscure possibility of locating someone named Patterico in an undisclosed location. Is somebody really going to hunt you down to try and kick you in the balls? Could someone bust any random “liberal” who happened to disagree with them over the head with a bat? No hunting required, plenty of them around everywhere.
Yeah, I’ve gone on to excess here, and neither statement is very likely to actually put a real person at risk (I hope)but only because you just don’t seem to be able to weigh the concept of probability in a rational manner.
Shorter: Your outrage is utterly ridiculous and completely out of proportion when compared to John’s original remark and the context in which it was made. I THINK you know that, but you just can’t let this go for some reason…and that makes you just too big and tempting a target to be mocked and ridiculed for a lot folks to pass up. Remember, this didn’t pop up out of the blue. You were the one who formulated that inane hypothetical in the first place and I think it is obvious you were playing to YOUR crowd when you did so. John called “Bullshit” on you and made a non-serious remark about “kicking someone’s junk”. Then YOU, once again, ventured beyond the boundaries of logic and common sense and accused John of advocating violence.
Shorter still: Just WTF fuck is WRONG with you, man?
Perry Como
One final hypothetical before I pack my bags for the land of “illegals” and mezcal:
Assuming Patterico’s hypothetical is morally justified, could it lead to the moral justification of my hypotheticals?
Hypothetically, of course.
heywood jablomy
Another gem from the liar Patterico’s blog:
Such wondrous self-awareness. This guy truly thinks his farts are champagne bubbles. Hey Patterico, narcissistic personality disorder much?
TenguPhule
Patterico wins the Irony of the Day.
Now answer the question, would you, Patterico, have hot gay sex with a terrorist if it would stop another 9/11?
Hypothetically speaking of course.
TenguPhule
We can’t prove a negative, John.
Therefore according to the Rules of Republican Logic, this means Jeff Goldstein cockslaps like there’s no tomorrow.
TenguPhule
If you endorse Torture as official US policy then You are.
And deserve the same treatment.
Targeted Assassinations aren’t as much fun when you’re one of the targets, eh?
tBone
If you consider your junk to be the groinal equivalent of the NYT building or a Supreme Court justice, I suppose this is true.
I don’t blame you for being upset with John. His vicious hypothetical kick to your hypothetical junk has created a very real twist in your panties, which is potentially much more dangerous. You should work on getting that unknotted before the lack of circulation causes any damage.
Patterico
Just to remember: Timothy McVeigh was a real, live, right-wing wacko who killed hundreds. This is the sort of thing Patterico and company “joke” about? Especially when they’re so very, very angry?
I didn’t joke about it, Greg.
TenguPhule
1. Opening debate on using torture makes you an UnAmerican Asshole.
2. Trying to sell 100% certainty on ‘admitted mass murderers (do we assume they were tortured into admitting this?) makes you a weaseling little chickenshit Asshole.
3. ‘Only three minutes’ as an excuse that ‘it’s not that bad’ makes you a self-fellating King Bunghole Ass.
alphie
Geez, Patterico,
You ban anyone who questions your “logic” from your blog.
Maybe you should just stay there, where it’s nice and safe.
sal
“At any rate, before he gets another set of the vapors, someone please tell Patterico that Jeff Goldstein at PW has never actually cock-slapped anyone.”
Do you know that for a fact, John? Rumor has it, and who am I to say otherwise, that Jeff has been seen in the Minneapolis airport more than once.
grumpy realist
I note that Patterico has gotten all in a twist about the supposed rude words we called him rather than addressing ANYTHING at all about our remarks against his stupid, silly hypothetical about torture.
I think the reason he’s so mad is he can’t stand at have been shown to be a whiny little nitwit all over the internets. A STUPID little nitwit at that.
Patterico, the logic of our arguments does not depend on our posting anonymously or not. We are falling into the fine American tradition of anonymous pamphleteers, such as done by people like Ben Franklin. And may I make some remarks about your own lack of revelation of name?
As the man says:”Sheesh, how did you ever get your law degree?”
And if you can’t take the standard snark and back-and-forth of the internets, stop posting, ok?
m.croche
#1. Ann Coulter, “My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times Building.”
#2. Patterico-commenter CraigC (6/22/2006): Ann Coulter was right, McVeigh should have parked his truck in front of the Times building. PIGS. FUCKING TREASONOUS PIGS.
#3. Patterico: I understand the emotion, believe me. I didn’t quite go the “Ann Coulter was right” route, but (as I said in the post) I understand the temptation. I, like you, am totally enraged.
So according to Patterico, #1 is a joke. #2 and 3 are not jokes. They are seriously meant. That’s quite remarkable, especially in the context of this thread.
By the way, it appears that Patterico has once again given in to his urge to out posters he disagrees with. Some folks here may remember the stunt he tried to pull with the witty and well-married Tbogg:
Small wonder Patterico considers “Stalkin” Malkin to be a class act.
John Cole
M. Croche- We are NOT going down this road again. I will not tolerate the back and forth of trying to ruin people’s day jobs bullshit (and I am not saying anyone has, because I have not followed these episodes closely in the past, really), but let’s nip that shit in the bud right now.
Tim F.
Nobody please kick Patterico in the junk.
Metaphorically kicking him in the junk by posting devastating comments that he moderates out of existence is still ok.
Thank you for your time,
eds.
Patterico
I saw someone claiming to have posted a comment on my site that I moderated out of existence. I checked my spam filter and it’s not there. I’m not calling the person a liar, but I am saying I didn’t delete it.
Tsulagi
Whoa, guess I wasn’t around last night for a sighting of a not-rare North American Right Wing Victim bird do a fly-by. Thank God for those birds. Without contributing their mighty hypotheticals, America would be lost. They see the big picture.
As far as Patterico moderating or not moderating comments out of existence, I submitted one yesterday on this post at his site. It didn’t make it. No big deal. Not calling Patterico a liar, maybe it’s simply a matter of his site’s intertubes backing up. Even though looking at the material there the stuff seems pretty free flowing, maybe it’s got a some constipation in its bowels. Common ailment for the N.A. RW Victim birds.
Oh, BTW, Cole, I don’t think I’ve seen a more appropriately titled post than this one. “Tears of a Clown” nails it.
Patterico
Resubmit it.
Patterico
alphie says I ban everyone who disagrees with me, but a quick look through any comments section of mine shows that to be an obvious lie.
Patterico
And you don’t have to consider yourself a “victim” to oppose jokes about violence. Ann Coulter jokes about violence all the time and I hate it, and I think you guys do too, because some of you complain about it. Does that make you victims? No, it makes you people who are properly mocking her for coarsening discourse.
You can always try to defend it by saying “mine was an obvious joke.” Go ahead . . . that’s how she defends what she says too.
Tim F.
Hell, I haven’t left any comments at Patterico’s at all so what do I know. If I did I would just paste what I said above since that cleanly encapsulates my opinion about the entire onanistic exercise.
pseudonymous in nc
you don’t have to consider yourself a “victim” to oppose jokes about violence.
Though to vehemently protest at jokes about violence while defending torture suggests that Patterico really does need to visit the moral chiropractor and get his priorities realigned.
It’s the pearl-clutching that creates the dissonance, see. Perhaps it’s just another strange mis-equivalence that one expects torture defenders to have (BS) machismo, which means it’s almost refreshing to see one who got all pouty over a joke.
(And you haven’t yet come near the hypothetical that involves your having hot gay sex with a terrorist to prevent another 9/11, have your?)
Patterico
pseudonymous,
Another tough guy who’s somehow not even tough enough to opine under his own name.
I bet if I even hinted at your true name, you’d scream OUTING!!!! like my friend Greg/m.croche a few comments back.
So who is the pussy again?
Yup, it’s you, and all the other anonymous commenters here, who talk tough in front of their computer screens, but are scared to death to have anyone know who they are.
It’s pretty funny, really.
grumpy realist
Oh god, is the little nitwit back again?
Patterico, you haven’t said diddly-squat about any of the actual arguments we have brought up about torture, the western legal tradition, etc. The only thing you’ve done, over and over and over, is scream about how nasty we are to you and how we’re “idiots” and don’t blog under our own names.
Which tells me a) first of all, you’re a hypocrite, given that you don’t blog under your own name. Out yourself first, you dumbass. b) you are screeching about these very minor inconsequential matters because you don’t have a leg to stand on and you bloody well know it. I worry far more about the damage people like you do to my rights under law than any “incivility”.
Look, if you want to dissolve in a puddle of pee out of fear of the “Islamofacists”, we’ll put you in a nice paddled cell with guards all around it saving you from the Scary People. But don’t try to come up with some moral justification for your “right to torture” me–there is none. And I don’t have much respect for someone so willing to tear up over 1000 years of legal jurisprudence, checks and balances, simply because he’s scared.
Patterico
Which tells me a) first of all, you’re a hypocrite, given that you don’t blog under your own name. Out yourself first, you dumbass.
OK, dumbass. I did, long ago. You’d know that if you know anything about me, but you don’t, because you’re a John Cole commenter and therefore used to blathering about things you don’t know about.
So you’re hiding behind a pseudonym and calling me scared. That’s what’s so rich.
I’m not going to debate torture with nitwits. I’m just here because it’s fun to make fun of you. I don’t want to *talk* to you, any more than I would go into a mental institution looking for good conversation.
grumpy realist
And HEEERE’S PATTY AGAIN! Again whining about the anonymity of the posters on this blog and totally ignoring the validity of any of our other arguments.
Obviously not anyone who has ever submitted a scholarly article to any journal at any point. Patty would turn purple at getting comments back from the referees, whine incessantly about how he didn’t know any of their names, and refuse to fix anything.
Guess he’s not a scholar. Well, we already know he knows jack-all about the basis of Western legal traditions, so this falls in the same ballpark.
Patterico
grumpy realist — if that *is* your real name.
I’m simply pointing out your lack of courage, that’s all, buddy. Oh, and your stupidity in commenting on things you know nothing about.
Now go take your medication and stop drooling on yourself. We’ll discuss your “valid” arguments on torture . . . next week. And stop spitting on the nurses.
Zuzu
Good God, I thought I’d seen Patterico stupidity before, but this takes the cake.
Good God.