Flutterby™! : Evil and un-American 2007-11-16 15:01:53.564627+00

Evil and un-American

2007-11-16 15:01:53.564627+00 by Dan Lyke 13 comments

Medley points out this exchange with Hillary Clinton

BLITZER: You say national security is more important than human rights. Senator Clinton, what do you say?

CLINTON: I agree with that completely. ...

From this transcript of the CNN Democratic debate in Las Vegas. Now maybe there's some nuance there about the definition of "human rights", but the purpose of the state should be to protect the rights of its citizens. If that's not the purpose of the state, then we're back to the old Europe (and other places) where the citizens are subsumed into "the needs of the state", and are expendable for the glory of the enterprise.

Our big media (and others) have helped make Clinton a democratic front-runner, but I personally find her to be the most "packaged, scripted, and disingenuous candidate" in either (any) party.

"If that's not the purpose of the state, then we're back to the old Europe (and other places) where the citizens are subsumed into "the needs of the state", and are expendable for the glory of the enterprise."

so who are going to vote for who agrees the only purpose of the state is to protect individual rights. hint hint

Well yes - you know my life has been so quiet lately - I could use a little more sodomy in my life - whatever it is -

Yes the constitution reserves to the people those rights not enumerated in the Constitution. Yes its not Objectivism, alas, BUT as I have said I'll take it in a heartbeat to what we got now. And Californicationia can do their own thing without the permission of the flyover states where Mayberry is.

I'll not name the name here that causes these threads to become Flutterby record setting in length either.. :)

Giggle. Yeah, I admit that I may end up voting for him in the primaries at least... I just contend that at best he's an example of "less bad", and not actually good.

#Comment Re: made: 2007-11-16 17:31:37.236091+00 by: ziffle [edit history]

I think we have reached the point where we can save time by not actually typing the answers, just indicate the number of the comment in the big thread. like 45 and you: well, 33! and then me: Forget it: 45 and so forth - then I can get back to work.

I think we have reached the point where can save time by not actually typing the answers

Well yes - you know my life has been so quiet lately - I could use a little more sodomy in my life - whatever it is -

To get back to the post, the context of this exchange needs to be taken into account. Richardson had just disagreed with Biden (I think) who had stated the opposite. Richardson pointed out that the oath of office didn't mention human rights but did mention the job of President was to ensure the security of the country from threats both foreign and domestic. He made a pretty good argument for his opinion on this also. He wasn't denying the improtance of protecting human rights and he made it clear that he believed you could keep the country secure without violating human rights but the job description was explicit on what was the important thing.

It was then that Blitzer turned to Clinton with his question and she gave her reply. It was sort of like, yeah, me too. This happened over and over during that debate. Senator Clinton made a good show of being firm and presidential but what she was saying a lot of just agreeing with points made by other candidates.

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

The Constitution is about creating a form of government whose primary purpose is to protect individual rights and secure the blessings of liberty for future generations; it's not about "safety" or what has come to be known as "security" recently. At least, that's what I've always thought. I guess the Democrats are interpreting things differently these days.

Looking at the transcript, the discussion Ms. Clinton was following was from Mr. Dodd concerning how we need to deal with Pakistan and Musharraf and HIS attitude toward human rights. As I get the tone of the discussion, it centered around how Bush has turned a blind eye toward Musharraf and others in region.... basically, we've traded our silence about their human rights abuses for support in the Iraq war.

Ms. Clinton went on to discuss why it's in the interest of Pakistan and the US to have a democratic, at least semi-democratic, government there and she discussed how Bush failed to pressure Musharraf on human rights issues.

Basically, IMO, all the candidates are just blowing smoke on this issue since Musharraf HAS to know that the support of Pakistan is critical if we're going have any success with keeping Afghanistan from reverting back to the Taliban and if we're to have any hope of ever killing Bin Laden. He's got quite a few cards and I don't think we're gonna pressure him too much on human rights at this point, regardless of campaign rhetoric.

Cozying up to despots for temporary foreign policy debacles like Iraq, as we've done previously in the region, will begin to bear fruit.... bitter fruit.... as it did with Saddam. Thanks, Ronnie.