After a year or two of relative silence, the right-wingers are at it again. Here, for your weekend reading pleasure, are two choice entries from today’s mail bag:
First, from “Mike Crowe” at crondo1@sbcglobal.net:
I HOPE YOU GET IN THE WAY OF A BOMB THAT WAS PLANTED TO KILL AMEARICANS.
BETTER YET, I’D LIKE TO SEE YOU GET WATERBOARDED.
IT MIGHT GET SOME OF THAT LIBERAL SHIT OUT OF YOUR HEAD.
FUCK YOU!
I’m confused. I am an “Amearican.” So if the bomb planted to kill “Amearicans” went off, I wouldn’t so much as be getting in its way as…never mind. Also, how would getting waterboarded make me more politically conservative? Is conservativism literally watered-down liberalism? And if it works that way, aren’t all the Gitmo detainees Republicans by now, which means it’s safe to release them?
Then, from WolverB@aol.com, there’s:
Ted, You should be shot. You are a worthless person taking up good air that someone else could use. It’s people like you that have caused this nation to be the cesspool that it has become. Leftists have no discipline, no logic, no sense of right and wrong. You think its wrong to force a killer to give us important information that might save lives but you don’t have a problem with murdering millions of unborn babies every year on a whim.
Again, I’m confused. Who are these “killers” who are being waterboaded? They’re not convicted murderers–they haven’t seen a lawyer, much less a judge or a jury. So they’re innocent, right? Also, I’m wondering where I ever wrote that abortion was awesome.
Oh, and note that this rightie things this nation has become a cesspool. He hates America!
P.S. A reminder to right-wingers about my E-mail Rules: anything you send me can and will, especially if it’s obnoxious, appear in the . Including your email address.
26 Comments.
The correct response to the "…oh, he just hates America." insult is "No, I just hate you"
Guess the far-right loves caps lock. Or is just part of their tell a lie, repeat a bit louder, get a group and repeat it louder, perceive it as the universal truth and go on a crusade routine?
No Ted, to these people you are not an American. Neither am I. In fact, we're sub human, because the objects of their wrath can't help being brown, but we're white and treacherous for it.
They are bigots, and a bigot defines anyone not like them as entirely other. So you can't be an American, because you're not like them, and they're Americans…how can that be? Bigots work entirely in ideal types. Anything that doesn't fit their ideal type is worse than the ideal types they hate the most….because they don't understand anything really.
Bigotry is such a filthy disease and so pervasive that it's now in control of our nation….but to the bigot, this isn't "our nation."
It's their nation, and we can "like it or leave." Look, this happens to most great powers, just enjoy the ride. I've been beaten down so much that now my liberal friends hound me about my fatalism.
It's what we get, it's what we deserve, there's no recovery, and people like me are usually lined up and shot when the shit hits the fan.
Ted, these detainees were caught in the act of or training for acts of terror against the U.S. They have no rights, because they are not covered under Geneva conventions because…they're terrorists.
You sit in you office complaining about "torture" of these terrorists, yet they're the same people that would love to burn you alive and drag your blackened corpse through the street. We have to play hardball to get information out of them. You really need to wake up to the realism of religious fanatics who think they get rewarded in the afterlife if they either convert or kill everyone who doesn't believe the way they do!
I hate America. And Freedom. I mean, really, REALLY hate Freedom. But that's probably because I'm from Old Europe, with our commie welfare states and free education.
A good waterboarding would probably wash that nonsense out of my head.
Preacher, most of these people were purchased from local war lords by the CIA using tax payer money. Many were discovered to be innocents who were just rounded up and sold for the profit. Some were as young as 12 and have absolutely no knowledge of what's going on.
That money actually did go to terrorists. The problem now is that we've tortured and abused innocent people and are afraid they WILL become terrorists….or talk about what happened to them.
Second, even if they aren't covered by the Geneva Convention, this is not the relevant document to begin with. They ARE covered by the UN Convention on torture, regardless of what WE want to call them. That is the relevant document, and the American media refuses to even talk about it.
Why don't you get a clue first and then go preach.
I'm so completely sick and tired of "patriotic Americans" who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground.
To preempt your reactionary thought…No, it is NOT acceptable that you didn't know that before you opened your pie hole.
And Ted, they say I don't live in the real world.
Ted, posting a child's e-mail address like that is really unfair.
I expect more from you. Very disappointed.
What's the mission of the
Preacher man?
Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!
Term papers are ok. If you've got the time to watch sports, you've got the time to read a term paper.
Ted, for goodness sake, wake up to the reallity of religous fanatics. Let me help, George Bush, Dick Chenny, The Superemes,(not the Motown group) should I continue?
Angelo, no child would be as vile as that. That comes with upbringing.
Ted,
You should not be shot. Irrespective of how I feel about your political views, I unequivocally believe that it would be entirely wrong to shoot you. I imagine a lot of people feel the same way, so buck up!
Best,
Justin
google the author of the second email.
Turns out, he/she has an email posted at Neil Bortz, too.
Aside to Preacher101: Isn't it cool that whenver we go anywhere by air travel, we get really tiny?
We know this since whenever we see planes go overhead, they're really small compared the way we see them on the ground.
The conclusion reached on the basis of quasifactual premises in Preacher101's comment follows about as logically as the tiny-on-the-plane assertion.
Ted, there's a typo near the end: "thing" should be "think."
While threats to your person are completely out of line, and while the authors of these messages are no doubt ignorant fools, you should remember that when you call those serving in uniform war criminals, people tend to take issue with that. If you'd ever served you'd know what I mean.
Ahhh….Owen, so anyone in a uniform is immune to criticism by anyone else unless they've "served"?
You're right, all of us peasants and children just "don't understand" cuz we haven't "been there" and followed orders to violate the brown people for the protection of our race.
Of course, those who HAVE served and then make the same types of critiques are greeted as traitors….Max Cleeland is "unpatriotic" because he's a democrat.
That kind of thing.
I don't think it is reasonable to hide behind the 'iron man' complex of "I shot a man in the face so you could eat that hamburger [so you owe me your life…and a night with your girlfriend]"
Just take a look at imperial Japan to see fully what happens when a society gets taken over by the demand to unquestionably support the military. People who perpetrate war crimes are war criminals…if we don't like that word, maybe we shouldn't disregard the law. "I was just following orders" and the chain of command are simply mechanisms that allow people to commit atrocities -without mercy and without remorse- as Lt. Spears put it.
Giving immunity to those who carry out government sanctioned torture is yet another way of allowing the perpetuation of savagery in our society.
Yes, I understand that this will get under peoples' skin….but that does not make their reactionary bigotry acceptable or excusable.
We strive to live in a civilized society, but then we take every opportunity to cast off civility when it suits us.
If you'd ever served you'd know what I mean.
Military Keynesianism is still Keynesianism. Engaging in it does not equal serving your country. Reagan believed it was destroying the country. But don't worry, soon the free market will rescue the military from the clutches of socialism. (Imagine Blackwater's Coast Guard.) My Navy/Army friends can finally stop feeding from the public trough like a bunch of "welfare queens" in navy fatigues.
To all of you that support and/or joined the military, all of your marching and patriotism and macho bullshit leave me with only one mental picture. Berlin 1936. Get used to it. And there is nothing in this world that could get me to join the army. Except, of course, if they brought Hitler back from the dead. P.S. Your Grandfathers and your Uncles fought against the Nazis 'cause they tortured and set up camps and couldn't tolerate those who agree with them.
OOPS DIS-AGREED
The pro-torture, right-wing America hater is emailing from an AOL account. I'll let that speak for itself.
"To all of you that support and/or joined the military, all of your marching and patriotism and macho bullshit leave me with only one mental picture. Berlin 1936."
Unless one is in the Coast Guard and is saving lives and responding to natural disasters. Way to over generalize, you anti-American douche bag.
aggie,
I never said or implied any of what you stated. All I said was that those of us who have served and are serving in uniform take exception to being called "war criminals", especially since the vast majority of us (and almost everyone in my particular service) serve in non-combat related jobs.
"… you owe me your life…and a night with your girlfriend.."
This is exactly what I'm talking about. You paint us all as knuckle dragging perverts. The fact is that many of us just simply have a sense of duty to the nation that we hold more dear than our own lives. I'm sickened by your comments and disheartened that too many in America think like you do.
Sorry I dissed the Coast Guard, they don't roam the planet spreading "Freedom" like the other gangs that represent America. Can't you see that the military is in the business of self-perpetuation?? Just like the DEA they cause the problems that they are sent to fix.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7391537.stm
Hey Coast Guard, How does this make you feel??? Dorme bene…
Owen,
Are you "serving your country" in a way that Ted isn't?
Seems to me you joined the CG because this country's private sector failed you. Socialism defined.
Some would say your country is serving you…and they would be pissed off at you.
The real question is which country you'll flee to when the CG gets absorbed into the Army medical corps in Afghanistan.
angelo,
How dare you question my patriotism. How dare you imply that I'll desert my post and my duties if the CG becomes more involved overseas. Yo're real tough at a key board, but rest assured you'd be nursing a bloody nose if you said that to my face.
Yes, I am serving the U.S. in a way that Ted isn't. He hasn't taken an oath to anything. He hasn't pledged to devote himself to a cause that is more dear than his own life (unless we consider anti-military, anti-American behaviour a dear cause).
As for why I joined the CG, mind your own fucking business. I joined for a plethora of reasons (college money coming up short, the overwhelming desire to serve my nation, etc). I still pay taxes just like you (well, you're a lefty, so you probably dodge them). In short, fuck off.