Political Hippo Circle Jerk - America, farg YEAH!

[Sgt PSN]

How much longer until people in Nigeria are getting scammed/spammed from trailer parks in Alabama? 

[Seabiscuit36]

not soon enough

[MDS]

lol @ people from trailer parks in alabama using computers

[Rome]

http://www.nationaljournal.com/columns/vantage-point/in-qaddafi-s-execution-justice-denied-20111027

Great article...

Justice Denied

Qaddafi died as he had ruled, with brutal force. But that doesn't justify putting a bullet in his head.

Updated: October 27, 2011 | 7:12 p.m.
October 27, 2011 | 3:00 p.m.


After Qaddafi: Libyans need to clean up their act.

The gruesome images we saw last week when Muammar el-Qaddafi met his foes for the final time, was dragged out of a drain pipe, and flung against the hood of an armored truck were jarring. The former strongman was a bleeding, staggering mess, and he found no quarter with his captors. Sometime between the moment when a shaky cell-phone video recorded him reeling, as fighters spat and beat him about the head, and when another even more disorienting one displayed his lifeless body on the ground, someone put a bullet in the back of his head.

There was chaos in those scenes: fighters jostling to get their hands on the man who was once untouchable, shouts of "Allahu Akbar" deafening ears, and celebratory gunfire. There was also blood thirst.

We've seen this all before, whether it was Iraqis rigging charred bodies onto a bridge in Falluja in 2004, or Palestinians lynching three Israeli reservists who went down the wrong road in Ramallah in 2000, or French crowds impaling heads on spikes during the Reign of Terror in 1792.

It's easy to dismiss something like this as mob violence: Once one person discovers he can commit a crime with impunity, others follow, upping the ante until suddenly all sense and control is gone. When I arrived in Ramallah during an Israeli rocket attack on the site of the lynching, I hid as an unrepentant crowd marched past me and shouted in defiant response. I wondered at what point conscience would interrupt their chanting: When does a person realize he has done something he knows innately to be wrong? I watched my shaken Palestinian colleagues sink their heads into their hands as they tried to fathom how things turned so ugly that they, too, were beaten and their cameras snatched away. On a dime, an angry scene turned vicious. Everyone—and no one—was to blame for what transpired.

Some people have crowed at the images from Surt, calling it justice. They say that the tyrant got the ending he deserved, that he died as he had ruled, with brutal force.

Yet we know that's not true. We've watched ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak on trial from his hospital bed—an image that has gripped not only Egyptians but also people around the world (including fellow dictators). The trial of Saddam Hussein was a farce from start to jolting end, yet these two exercises in "due process" allowed their victims to face their former tormentors. Qaddafi will never be held to account. He'll never have to obey a court's jurisdiction, he'll never see the inside of a cell, and he'll never witness how Libya can triumph without him.

Instead he was killed by men with their guns, in a pack scene that bordered on barbarity. By depriving Qaddafi and his many victims of justice, those fighters in Surt raised fears that those who were fighting to depose him might be as ruthless as the person they were determined to replace.

It speaks volumes about the intentions of a fledgling leadership when it promises to try a hated ruler with as much fairness and dignity as the people can stomach. And on this point, Libya's Transitional National Council failed. Qaddafi's killing raises uncomfortable questions about how much control the council has over its forces. Initial claims by the council that Qaddafi was killed in an airstrike on his convoy were quickly changed once those cell-phone videos made it onto the Internet and television. Then, later speculation by one official that a loyalist could have killed Qaddafi were further undone when footage of the presumed killer being embraced and congratulated made it onto the Internet.

After an autopsy, Qaddafi's still-bloodied corpse was laid beside that of his son Mutassim in a refrigerator in Misrata for several days for everyone to see. It was a blatant violation of Islamic law that requires washing of the corpse and burial before sunset—this at the same time that the council announced it would use Islam's sharia as the foundation for its new laws.

Qaddafi's body was finally handed over to his family for burial this week, while across Libya's battlefields, hastily dug graves were being unearthed, revealing executed fighters from both sides.

Some look to Libya's intensely tribal culture as a way of explaining elements of behavior not acceptable in civilized societies. So it is a harsh disappointment when people behave exactly as you expect them to. But if the Libyans want to be part of the democratic world, they will have to hold such behavior to account. The United Nations wants an investigation into how Qaddafi was killed. President Obama has called on the council to begin a process of national reconciliation and to unify the armed groups.

Casca was the first to stab an unarmed Julius Caesar, inspiring his fellow Romans to peck him to death with their daggers. In Shakespeare's account of the incident, Marcus Brutus later said to them: "Do so, and let no man abide this deed but we the doers." For Libya's new leaders, this age has no secrets. The whole world is watching to see what they do next.

[Munson]

How farging drunk and/or coked out was Rick Perry during the speech he gave in New Hampshire? Holy shtein

[Diomedes]

Rick Perry?  You'll understand if most of us didn't watch and don't care.

[rjs246]

This made me chuckle.

[ice grillin you]

thing is that could easily be true

[Eagaholic]

http://www.nationaljournal.com/columns/vantage-point/in-qaddafi-s-execution-justice-denied-20111027

Great article...

Justice Denied

Qaddafi died as he had ruled, with brutal force. But that doesn't justify putting a bullet in his head.

Updated: October 27, 2011 | 7:12 p.m.
October 27, 2011 | 3:00 p.m.


After Qaddafi: Libyans need to clean up their act.

The gruesome images we saw last week when Muammar el-Qaddafi met his foes for the final time, was dragged out of a drain pipe, and flung against the hood of an armored truck were jarring. The former strongman was a bleeding, staggering mess, and he found no quarter with his captors. Sometime between the moment when a shaky cell-phone video recorded him reeling, as fighters spat and beat him about the head, and when another even more disorienting one displayed his lifeless body on the ground, someone put a bullet in the back of his head.

There was chaos in those scenes: fighters jostling to get their hands on the man who was once untouchable, shouts of "Allahu Akbar" deafening ears, and celebratory gunfire. There was also blood thirst.

We've seen this all before, whether it was Iraqis rigging charred bodies onto a bridge in Falluja in 2004, or Palestinians lynching three Israeli reservists who went down the wrong road in Ramallah in 2000, or French crowds impaling heads on spikes during the Reign of Terror in 1792.

It's easy to dismiss something like this as mob violence: Once one person discovers he can commit a crime with impunity, others follow, upping the ante until suddenly all sense and control is gone. When I arrived in Ramallah during an Israeli rocket attack on the site of the lynching, I hid as an unrepentant crowd marched past me and shouted in defiant response. I wondered at what point conscience would interrupt their chanting: When does a person realize he has done something he knows innately to be wrong? I watched my shaken Palestinian colleagues sink their heads into their hands as they tried to fathom how things turned so ugly that they, too, were beaten and their cameras snatched away. On a dime, an angry scene turned vicious. Everyone—and no one—was to blame for what transpired.

Some people have crowed at the images from Surt, calling it justice. They say that the tyrant got the ending he deserved, that he died as he had ruled, with brutal force.

Yet we know that's not true. We've watched ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak on trial from his hospital bed—an image that has gripped not only Egyptians but also people around the world (including fellow dictators). The trial of Saddam Hussein was a farce from start to jolting end, yet these two exercises in "due process" allowed their victims to face their former tormentors. Qaddafi will never be held to account. He'll never have to obey a court's jurisdiction, he'll never see the inside of a cell, and he'll never witness how Libya can triumph without him.

Instead he was killed by men with their guns, in a pack scene that bordered on barbarity. By depriving Qaddafi and his many victims of justice, those fighters in Surt raised fears that those who were fighting to depose him might be as ruthless as the person they were determined to replace.

It speaks volumes about the intentions of a fledgling leadership when it promises to try a hated ruler with as much fairness and dignity as the people can stomach. And on this point, Libya's Transitional National Council failed. Qaddafi's killing raises uncomfortable questions about how much control the council has over its forces. Initial claims by the council that Qaddafi was killed in an airstrike on his convoy were quickly changed once those cell-phone videos made it onto the Internet and television. Then, later speculation by one official that a loyalist could have killed Qaddafi were further undone when footage of the presumed killer being embraced and congratulated made it onto the Internet.

After an autopsy, Qaddafi's still-bloodied corpse was laid beside that of his son Mutassim in a refrigerator in Misrata for several days for everyone to see. It was a blatant violation of Islamic law that requires washing of the corpse and burial before sunset—this at the same time that the council announced it would use Islam's sharia as the foundation for its new laws.

Qaddafi's body was finally handed over to his family for burial this week, while across Libya's battlefields, hastily dug graves were being unearthed, revealing executed fighters from both sides.

Some look to Libya's intensely tribal culture as a way of explaining elements of behavior not acceptable in civilized societies. So it is a harsh disappointment when people behave exactly as you expect them to. But if the Libyans want to be part of the democratic world, they will have to hold such behavior to account. The United Nations wants an investigation into how Qaddafi was killed. President Obama has called on the council to begin a process of national reconciliation and to unify the armed groups.

Casca was the first to stab an unarmed Julius Caesar, inspiring his fellow Romans to peck him to death with their daggers. In Shakespeare's account of the incident, Marcus Brutus later said to them: "Do so, and let no man abide this deed but we the doers." For Libya's new leaders, this age has no secrets. The whole world is watching to see what they do next.

I don't agree with the author's position. I have no problem with how he met his fate. Life doesn't "owe" him any better. I don't think the writer really understands what it is like to live under the reign of a despot and the abuses, torture and murder people have seen committed upon their families.

[Rome]

The writer is a brilliant political analyst.  She understands fully the ramifications of Quadaffi's reign of terror.  What she's saying is an act of brutality by a mob isn't the civilized way to seek justice against a tyrant, even one as brutal as he was.

[Hawk]

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20111101_Judge_tosses_evidence_in_Rep__Parkers_DUI_case.html?cmpid=124488469&jCount=2&#comments

Philly politics at its finest.

[Eagaholic]

The writer is a brilliant political analyst.  She understands fully the ramifications of Quadaffi's reign of terror.  What she's saying is an act of brutality by a mob isn't the civilized way to seek justice against a tyrant, even one as brutal as he was.

Yes, and she made her point well. I'm saying although she does have a good intellectual understanding I doubt she has the visceral grasp of seeing your innocent child or father killed at the hands of a ruthless dictator. Most of us are fortunate enough that that kind of trauma is unfathomable, and affords us the luxury of holding high ideals of justice. That is a good thing and is necessary. But in cases like this, if there's a Bin Laden rather than a Saddam ending (granted Gaddafi was probably more of a mixed bag of good and bad) and if mob justice prevails over legal due process, I think it's perfectly understandable and acceptable, and even a natural conclusion. 
   

[Rome]

Jamming a knife up someone's ass and then mutilating them in the street is perfectly acceptable?

No, it's not.  It's barbaric and until the cycle of violence ends you're going to see more of the same.

[Diomedes]

I think it's perfectly understandable and acceptable, and even a natural conclusion.

It's understandable, but not acceptable.  Unless you don't give a damn for civilized society, in which case it is both.  Regarding what's natural, I have no idea..that's a bunch of mumbo jumbo.

[Sgt PSN]

Understandable, yes.  Acceptable, no. 

Gaddafi definitely "had it coming" so to speak, but no civilized society should ever be accepting of street justice over due process. 

If we as people are ever going to progress then we have to not only raise the standard, but do everything we possibly can to live up to those standards and try and drag those who don't up to that same level.  Brushing it off because the guy did horrible things is no excuse.  Serial killers, rapists, pedophiles all get their due process.  Gaddafi shouldn't have been any different.

It's not about what Gaddafi did or didn't deserve, it's about humanity.  It's about people acting like people and not a bunch of blood thirsty savages who are seeking revenge instead of justice.