Open Thread: Shocking and Inhumane

That it is. (4.00 / 1)

Whenever I talk to my German friends about it, they find it unbelievable. Really. My friend's boyfriend had to have some vertebrae in his neck replaced. he was in the hospital and rehab for weeks and weeks. He is just going back to work now, and it's been half a year. If he'd been in the USA, he'd have no job and be looking at bankruptcy. Or maybe he'd have gone back to work sooner and risked complications or further injury.

And when I described the Obama-as-Hitler posters carried by tea partiers to my local German friend, he said with aplomb:
"Hitler didn't provide health insurance in Germany. That was Bismarck. He was a Conservative.

Uh--yeah.

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by: Jennifer Daler @ Thu Jan 21, 2010 at 06:06:03 AM CST

My mother had a life-long hatred of Bismarck, whom she blamed for the (4.00 / 1)

advent of Hitler.  Being the person she was, she'd obviously absorbed this line from someone else.  But, the reason she clung to it was her own.  Or rather, it wasn't a reason--it was an irrational position that fed her fundamental envy of anything other people enjoyed and a constant interest in depriving them of it.  Her envy wasn't prompted by a desire to have for herself what others enjoyed.  She was simply driven by an inclination to deprive, which somehow enhanced her own importance.

Deprivation provides some people with psychological satisfaction--youths who pull the wings off flies to deprive them of flight are examples.

The thing is that such behavior is not considered criminal, although there is a crime called "deprivation under color of law," because our criminal code assumes that malefactors aim to benefit themselves, usually in a material way.  So, the deprivators can claim that they are not doing anything wrong by withholding protection from injury and disease.  Of course, to be credible, this position has to ignore the Constitutional mandate to provide for the public welfare.  But, that's not been significant because our agents of government have mostly gotten into the habit of behaving as enforcers, rather than themselves being obligated to follow the constitutional mandates.

Perhaps the most accurate George W. Bush statement ever made was after the 2004 election when he said "I have a mandate."  Where the misunderstanding arose was in his thinking that he had a mandate to rule, rather than to obey the law.

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by: hannah @ Thu Jan 21, 2010 at 10:11:41 AM CST

[ Parent ]

Sec. Clinton: Af/Pak Regional Stabilization Strategy (0.00 / 0)

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Washington, DC

January 21, 2010

I have made it a top priority to elevate the role of diplomacy and development alongside defense in our national security strategy. Nowhere is this more urgent than in our efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. To meet this core goal, President Obama has outlined a strategy that includes supporting the Afghan and Pakistani governments' efforts to defeat the extremist threat. As President Obama made clear at West Point on December 1, our civilian engagement in Afghanistan and Pakistan will endure long after our combat troops come home. While our military mission in Afghanistan is not open-ended, we are committed to building lasting partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The challenges in both countries are immense. The Afghan government is under assault from the Taliban and struggling to provide security, jobs, and basic justice to a society devastated by 30 years of war. Across the border, the Pakistani people are victim to regular suicide bombings despite their military's increasingly determined efforts against extremist elements. And while al-Qaeda's safe-haven in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area is increasingly disrupted, its senior leaders are still planning attacks against our homeland and our Allies.

We shaped our political, economic, and diplomatic efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan with these realities in mind. Far from an exercise in "nation-building," the programs detailed here aim to achieve realistic progress in critical areas. They are aligned with our security objectives and have been developed in close consultation with the Afghan and Pakistani governments, as well as our international partners. When combined with U.S. combat operations and efforts to build Afghan and Pakistani security capacity, these programs constitute an innovative, whole-of-government strategy to protect our vital interests in this volatile region of the world.

We have no illusions about the challenges ahead of us. Achieving progress will require continued sacrifice not only by our military personnel, but also by the more than 1,500 U.S. government civilians serving in Afghanistan and Pakistan. But for the first time since this conflict began, we have a true whole-of-government approach. The Afghan and Pakistani governments have endorsed this strategy and are committed to achieving our shared objectives. And as I was reminded during recent visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan, our civilian and military personnel are working together as never before.

For these reasons, I believe this strategy offers the best prospect for stabilizing Afghanistan and Pakistan. I look forward to working with Congress to secure the non-military resources needed to achieve our mission and to signal our commitment to Afghanistan and Pakistan. I am committed to doing everything possible to ensure that those resources are well spent advancing our national interests.

The Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Stabilization Strategy is available at the following link: http://www.state.gov/documents...

Whack-a-mole, anyone?

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by: Jack Mitchell @ Thu Jan 21, 2010 at 15:48:57 PM CST