Comments on: Time-share

By: timeshareacme.com » Blog Archive » Time Share - Facts About Owning a Vacation Home or Time-Share

Mon, 16 Jan 2006 09:42:07 +0000

[...] Crooked Timber Time-share If we follow up by procuring a time-share option in the torture chambers of Syria, Egypt, etc., history will not be kind to us. UPDATE : Liddy asks why don t I include a link to Hostettler s [...]

By: Katherine

Katherine — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 14:32:10 +0000

Hostettler has taken a position: “US Representatives John Hostettler and Lamar Smith, Republicans of Indiana and Texas, defend the provisions as necessary to prevent terrorists and criminals from being released to the streets instead of being deported if they contend their home country will torture them. ‘’Without this provision, your constituents will continue to be in danger,” they wrote to colleagues, adding that 500 immigrants with criminal records have been released in the United States after saying they would be tortured if deported.” I think I’m going to give $25 to his opponent.

By: mona

mona — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 07:43:43 +0000

Mike, the view that torture can have any practical use to gather intelligence that can save lives can come only from the movies. It’s pure fiction. In real cases, it’s indisputed that torture serves no other purpose than persecution and intimidation – and that is precisely one of the reasons why so many countries have ratified conventions against torture. It’s not just principles, it’s practice, you can’t separate the two. The legal aspect is crucial because once you ratify a law against torture, you are no longer entertaining the notion of possible pros of torture, you are acknowledging there are none. If you go back and change that, while not even having the coherence to withdraw from the conventions, expect it to come back and bite you in ways that are the exact opposite of promoting security and fighting terrorism. a.k.a. asking for it. The reasons this sort of provision is being advanced has nothing to do with security, it’s a pure politics. See at Obsidian Wings. bq. “If we can’t put partisan politics and presidential campaigning aside when we’re trying to strengthen our nation’s ability to deter and respond to a terrorism attack, we might as well go home,” added Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine. “This is just too important to allow partisan politics to interfere with the progress of this bill.” bq. “The Democrats got spanked hard on homeland security,” said John Feehery, spokesman for House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. “I don’t think they want to get spanked again.”

By: Mike

Mike — Wed, 06 Oct 2004 07:08:11 +0000

Mona I understand and normally agree with what youre saying. What has me rethinking the issue is this. What good is standing firm on principle? For me to demand that human dignity & life be respected by our government. If the result is a massive loss of life in an American city? It forces me to ask myself a really shitty question. What do I value more? Principle or people? The answer to any question like this will always be people. Which begs me to answer another shitty question. That answer being “my people”. So you see for me its not as simple as just being a matter of law. What good are laws if following them facilitates massive human death? Who’s to say that would happen? Who’s to say it wont? Which one of those should be assumed and should we act on when we error on the side of caution? MS

By: mona

mona — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 20:12:24 +0000

Ok, but then… wouldn’t that require withdrawing from the Convention? Sorry I hope I’m not being too thick about it, I just can’t get my head around this: how can you be still upholding a convention when you’re voiding your support for it by violating it, not just in practice, but in law…

By: Katherine

Katherine — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 19:38:23 +0000

Right, but it can be overridden by later statutes.

By: mona

mona — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 19:14:14 +0000

katherine: but international law is domestic law, once it’s ratified. At least, if I understand correctly – I’m no legal expert, but this seems clear (I’d already quoted in a previous thread, sorry for repetition): bq. In a May 14, 1997 Memorandum to Regional and District Counsels and All Headquarters Attorneys, titled Compliance with Article 3 of the Convention Against Torture, the INS Office of General Counsel indicates that (…) as a provision in a treaty to which the United States is a party, Article 3 is United States law, equal in force to a federal statute. I don’t understand how violating it without denouncing the convention can be defended by anyone who has anything to do with law. Like, well, a Congress…

By: Katherine

Katherine — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 17:34:36 +0000

mona: legal under domestic law, illegal under international law.

By: Richard Bellamy

Richard Bellamy — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 16:37:15 +0000

In my mind, what I am thinking is very straight forward, and it is not “hoping for bad things to happen.” It is simply this: I firmly believe that President Bush’s policies will inevitably lead to bad things X, Y, and Z. Given that bad thing X is inevitable under the current policy, I would prefer it to happen before the election, so that people will see it as a step to Y and Z, and then vote for Kerry, wherein Y and Z may be averted. If bad thing X doesn’t happen until after the election, there will be no chance to vote for a new policy before Y and Z occur, and things are therefore that much worse. X, Y, and Z may be the economy (inflation, job loss, economic collapse) or Iraq (increased insurgency, quagmire, massive loss of life) or anything else. So I believe it will happen, wanting it to happen BEFORE the election rather than AFTER the election is merely a wish regarding timing, not a wish for more actual bad stuff.

By: mona

mona — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 15:36:54 +0000

Andrew: I know, but how can they do it, legally? you can’t have countries singlehandedly make their own exceptions to a Convention against torture. There’s no point to having a convention, then.

By: Andrew Brown

Andrew Brown — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 13:39:48 +0000

Mona, if you look at the proposed legislation, they are specifically derogating from the convention against torture.

By: Uncle Kvetch

Uncle Kvetch — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 13:31:24 +0000

For what it’s worth, NPR did a lengthy piece about both the House and Senate versions of the bill this morning, without so much as a word about extraordinary rendition.

By: Keith Ellis

Keith Ellis — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 09:09:05 +0000

Um, Giles, when you root for the economy to tank to discommode your political opponents, you do realize that means lots of folks not being able to feed their children, right? I’m rooting for the economy to tank(1) and some people not being able to feed their children so as to avoid a greater disaster and more starving children in the future. It’s not about vengeful, petty politics. Four more years of this administration will do more damage than has been done and is being done here and in Iraq. 1. Actually, not anymore, since we’re very close to the election. Some more bad news from Iraq wouldn’t hurt, though.

By: mona

mona — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 07:43:22 +0000

“I’d prefer that information be gained through tactics such as sleep dep, disorientation etc instead of resorting to anything physical. Unfortunately, and contrary to a popular progressive myth, physical torture works and works well.” I’m sorry, you can “prefer” whatever you like to prefer, it doesn’t matter, because the US has signed on to conventions against torture, and approved them as federal legislation, so it CANNOT do any of those things, from the mildest to the strongest form of torture, they’re all I-L-L-E-G-A-L. If this bill passes, it will mean the US is passing legislation in overt contradiction to those conventions, it may not be the first time but it’s getting serious enough by now and I for one am disturbed even more by the fact people seem to not give a shit about international law the US is bound to, except when it comes to claiming it to the US advantage. I’m not even getting into the ethical debate, I have nothing but disgust for people willing to consider torture, they deserve all their fantasies enacted on them, see if they favour sleep deprivation that much after testing out how physical it is, on their own skin. But the legal aspect is even more worrying. In other words. The ethical debate is closed already, there is no reopening it, the US is bound to conventions against torture, still now, no exceptions, no special circumstances, it’s all already black on white and ratified. So there is NO point in discussing if it could ever be justified, it’s like discussing if theft could ever be justified, it can’t, cos it’s illegal. If you want to make theft legal, you don’t come up with a way to outsource it to someone outside your legislation, when even that is forbidden by the laws you already have. You abolish the laws against theft. The US must either denounce the conventions or else respect them in full, there’s no third way, except illegality. Is legality a “progressive myth”? So does that make illegality and circumvention of laws and treaties without even denouncing them, in total impunity and unaccountability (because who could ever hold an economic and military superpower accountable? who could impose sanctions on the US? martians?), what, conservative values? All politics come with a dose of hypocrisy and cynicism, but at least spare us all the benevolent bullshit about human rights and democracy and oh, security. This is not going to make anyone more secure except those in power. Torture serves no practical purpose but intimidation, and that is precisely one of the reasons why there are conventions against it.

By: julia

julia — Tue, 05 Oct 2004 04:55:26 +0000

God, Hitchens is funny. I’m thinking that perhaps the party which raises the terror alert level on the basis of years old news when their polls are dropping is leveraging bad news in a fairly cynical way, but it is in the service of his pet war and his new friends in the GOP, so it’s OK? Um, Giles, when you root for the economy to tank to discommode your political opponents, you do realize that means lots of folks not being able to feed their children, right? Just for a minute, pretend it’s not a chess game.