Category: Old Dish

Here are a selection from some of the emails I’m forwarding to Army Captain Ian Fishback. Add your support by emailing supportfishback@aol.com. If you are a blogger and care about this, please post an item with the email address and explain to your readers what this is about. Maybe the blogosphere can help here as well. Let me know if you have joined the effort and I will compile a list of blogs in support of our effort. I am extremely heartened by the response so far. It reminds me that America still is a great country, because Americans are a great people. And they will overcome our present crisis and restore honor to the country and military they love.

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Thank you for your efforts to maintain the honor and integrity of the United States by upholding your own integrity. I do not think the ideals of an open democracy are served by pretending that we do not make mistakes. Only by accepting responsibility for those mistakes, and attempting to make right what is wrong, can we hope to embody our ideals, and to show others their strength. Key to that is the moral courage to do right and to fight for the highest ideals.
Your actions greatly strengthen my confidence in the US military and government. I cannot think you are alone in your personal integrity and fidelity. Please do not think that you are alone in your struggle. Many watch and admire your courage.

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My people came to this continent from Europe in 1652. 125 years later, we fought for freedom in the War of Independence. Down through the generations to my own parents, both of whom served. My uncle and my grandfather both gave their lives in service to this country.
It makes me proud of America to see someone in service today stand up and fight for the ideas that have made this country great. It is only through the bravery and integrity of men like you that we can keep our nation strong and ensure that this generation does not fail those who have guarded the ideals of the American Revolution through the centuries.
My grandfather had a saying: It isn’t integrity unless it costs you something; otherwise it is just a coincidence that makes you look good. I can hardly imagine how much this is costing you, Captain. May God give you the strength to continue the fight for what is good and right about America.

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I know these must be dark times for you. As a man who “saw wrong and tried to right it,” I’m filled with pride in your actions. You are a hero, and you stand with other heroes who stood up against what they knew was wrong. Through history, there were millions who thoughtlessly and blindly obeyed authority, mostly without consequence. You have chosen the harder path, where it is possible that your only reward is the knowledge that you did the right thing.

It is men like you that make our nation great. Thank you.

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Captain Fishback, what you’ve done epitomizes the best of America, and I hope that your courage and clear thinking help us to face this terrible chapter in our history and to become the nation we ought to be. You’re a credit to your family, your education and your country. God bless.

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Captain Fishback, I can’t imagine what you are going through at this time. All I can say is I had wondered where the military my father, grandfather, great-uncle and a couple of great-great-great grandfathers served in. You know the one that started with General Washington that held itself with honor, that treated its captured enemies with dignity even when it wasn’t returned. The military whose conduct was in large part responsible for the good will that America has had in the world until recently. The miliary that was so honorable that German WWI vets told their sons going to fight in WWII that if they had to surrender, surrender to an American. They would treat you with respect. I know now that that military is not gone. It’s alive in you, and I hope thousands like you. I pray that God gives you strength in the days ahead. You are a hero.

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As a supporter of the war, I want to thank you for standing up for what’s right. I can’t imagine how difficult this must be for you.
“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” – Gandhi
You will be vindicated.

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Captain Fishback, thank you. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. Thanks for picking up my share of the bill.

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I would like to thank you for your service to our country and the values for which it stands. My father was 82nd Airborne and I grew up proud of our military and our country. Please know that many of us understand that what you are fighting for is the quality of the freedom that our armed services have bled, died and triumphed for since the founding of this great nation. There can be no compromise to expediency because there are no shortcuts to morality. It is its own reward. And you, like my father, seem to understand that there is no virtue in fighting for the freedom to be anything less than the best that we can be.
Thank you so much for having the courage to care for these great ideals. It is inspirational and deeply, deeply appreciated.

“No human being could fail to be deeply moved by such a tribute as this [Thayer Award]. Coming from a profession I have served so long and a people I have loved so well, it fills me with an emotion I cannot express. But this award is not intended primarily to honor a personality, but to symbolize a great moral code – a code of conduct and chivalry of those who guard this beloved land of culture and ancient descent. For all hours and for all time, it is an expression of the ethics of the American soldier. That I should be integrated in this way with so noble an ideal arouses a sense of pride, and yet of humility, which will be with me always.
Duty, honor, country: Those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.” – General of the Army Douglas MacArthur to the cadets of the U.S. Military Academy in accepting the Sylvanus Thayer Award in May 1962.

QUOTE OF THE DAY II: “Do we sacrifice our ideals in order to preserve security? Terrorism inspires fear and suppresses ideals like freedom and individual rights. Overcoming the fear posed by terrorist threats is a tremendous test of our courage. Will we confront danger and adversity in order to preserve our ideals, or will our courage and commitment to individual rights wither at the prospect of sacrifice? My response is simple. If we abandon our ideals in the face of adversity and aggression, then those ideals were never really in our possession. I would rather die fighting than give up even the smallest part of the idea that is ‘America.'” – Army Captain Ian Fishback, of the 82d Airborne, in his letter to Senator McCain on why he found the systematic abuse and torture of military detainees, condoned by his superiors, a grotesque violation of military honor. Fishback has risked his career to defend america’s honor. Email him your support at supportfishback@aol.com, and I will make sure the emails are forwarded to him. There are 180 such emails already at this time. Keep them coming.

“What surprises me is how many of my conservative friends are still hot’n’heavy for W. Some of them are born-again Christians, and Bush is a born-again Christian, and that’s what does it for them. Fair enough, I suppose, if that’s the most important thing in your life, but what about the rest of us? What about us benighted folk who aren’t born-again Christians, but are nonetheless conservative, believing in small government, self-support, fiscal prudence, individual liberty, national security, orderly immigration, judicial restraint, traditional values, and equal opportunity? W doesn’t really offer a whole lot to us, does he? Sure, John Roberts was a good pick for SCOTUS, but who’s the next pick? Alberto ‘La Raza’ Gonzalez? No thanks. Sorry, George, the bloom is off the rose. I can’t even imagine voting for a Democrat, and I’m not a third party sort of guy, but… is this really the best we can do?” – John Derbyshire, National Review Online.

The Yglesias Award is for people who tell their own political side truths they don’t really want to hear.

Steven Levitt essentially defends Bennett. But he adds an interesting point:

There is one thing I would take Bennett to task for: first saying that he doesn’t believe our abortion-crime hypothesis but then revealing that he does believe it with his comments about black babies. You can’t have it both ways.

And I think, pondering again Bennett’s remarks, that by reflexively relating race to an argument he simultaneously rejects, his remarks do indeed have a tinge of racism in their assumptions. I’d still give him a pass – for an off-the-cuff response on a hypothetical policy whose immoriality he immediately emphasized.

EMAIL OF THE DAY: “It’s always been clear to me that you have a fine mind and the ability to write, but these talents are attenuated by your unremitting homosexuality – the emotional need to have aberrant sex. Clearly, your perversion and deviancy have affected your reason. Thus, you have no credibility as an observer of the current social and political climate. You are simply another frustrated fag who is trying very hard to legitimize his sexual perversion by striking out against anyone who wants to maintain thousands of years of normalcy. God, what must the average and decent American do to put the sexual deviates in their place (in concentration camps or mental institutions).”

(Every now and again, I post emails like these, which I receive regularly, not to grandstand but simply to remind people, especially in relatively enlightened circles, what pockets of hatred still exist in our culture).

“From traveling throughout Illinois and more recently around the country, I can tell you that Americans are suspicious of labels and suspicious of jargon. They don’t think George Bush is mean-spirited or prejudiced, but have become aware that his administration is irresponsible and often incompetent. They don’t think that corporations are inherently evil (a lot of them work in corporations), but they recognize that big business, unchecked, can fix the game to the detriment of working people and small entrepreneurs. They don’t think America is an imperialist brute, but are angry that the case to invade Iraq was exaggerated, are worried that we have unnecessarily alienated existing and potential allies around the world, and are ashamed by events like those at Abu Ghraib which violate our ideals as a country.

It’s this non-ideological lens through which much of the country viewed Judge Roberts’ confirmation hearings. A majority of folks, including a number of Democrats and Independents, don’t think that John Roberts is an ideologue bent on overturning every vestige of civil rights and civil liberties protections in our possession. Instead, they have good reason to believe he is a conservative judge who is (like it or not) within the mainstream of American jurisprudence, a judge appointed by a conservative president who could have done much worse (and probably, I fear, may do worse with the next nominee).” – Barack Obama, taking on the moonbats at DailyKos.

The hero who has blown the whistle on illegal abuse of prisoners has given up a lot to fight for the integrity of his country and his military. I know many of you wish to send him emails of support. Because he is sequestered and under interrogation, this is not easy. So I have set up an AOL email address: SupportFishback@aol.com. I will forward all your emails to his family, with whom I am in contact, and to his lawyer. I am reassured that Ian will receive the emails. He needs your support right now. His bravery, his integrity, his patriotism and his service are worth your support. Please let him know. Again: SupportFishback@aol.com. I will keep you posted.

The Jesuits fight back against irrational, unjust and indefensible discrimination. The battle to save the moral integrity of the Church is on.

Public support for amending Arizona’s state constitution to ban gay couples from getting married or having any legal protections is waning:

The poll of 390 voters done last week found that 60 percent are likely to oppose the Protect Marriage Arizona initiative if it makes the November 2006 ballot. Only 33 percent said they would vote for it, and the other 7 percent were undecided.

Polls in California and Massachusetts are showing the same trend.

“My God. I had to stop today and do a spit take, along with a Jon Stewart-style ‘Whuuuuuuaah?!?’ while rubbing my eyes when I read this in your remarks on the Bennett kerfuffle:

I too was sent dozens of emails calling Bennett out on his alleged racism. But it seemed unfair to me, given the full context of his remarks which are empirically hard to refute and whose immorality he went at length to emphasize.

Count this as a dozen and one. Empirically hard to refute?!? This is like saying it’s empirically hard to refute that if we simply exterminated all homosexuals, it would put a real dent in the HIV-AIDS rate, or that nuking all of Mexico would really cut down the illegal immigration problem. Technically those statements are “true,” yet simply making them betrays one as a moral monster, even when you then uncomfortably clear your throat a few moments later and claim that you were just playing devil’s advocate or whatever. I find this far worse than anything Trent Lott ever said. DeLong is being too even-handed by half, but I don’t even know how to respond to your observation that Bennett really wasn’t all that wrong. Sometimes, like with the Abu Ghraib issue, or gay priests in the Church, your moral compass is finely tuned with justice, but then I guess you have something for breakfast on occassion that just sends the needle spinning. You’ve completely lost it on this one.”

I’m sorry, but when you look at the full context of the remarks – specifically responding to a caller’s assertion that abortions in the past meant lost revenue for social security in the future, Bennett’s entire point was to oppose such idiotic generalizations and he used the “black babies” point as a way to reinforce that point. I stand by my moral sense here. This is simply a lesson in not using hyperbole or arguments designed as reductio ad absurdum when your comments can be wrenched out of context. And again: I’m no fan of Bennett. He has wrenched things I have written out of context for his own purposes. What he said was ill-advised, poorly phrased but not evil.

The effect of demoralization?

MICHAEL LERNER AND CINDY SHEEHAN: Somehow, you knew the moronic convergence was overdue.