[Edi]

Atrocities said:
Edi you lost the high ground again.

Edi, I made an observation based upon your comments that you seem to feel that the Terrorists are the real victims and that no matter what any one may say, they are all innocent because Bush is a bad man.

I don't know what you've been reading into my posts. I've said that the terrorist suspects detained at Guantanamo have been denied their due process rights. Whether or not they are terrorists has not been determined by any competent authority so far. Being accused of something is not proof of guilt, and establishing that guilt is a matter for the courts. Until that happens, statements about their guilt or innocence are premature, but if normal judicial principles are followed, innocence is presumed until guilt is proven. That's the long and short of it.

Bush's character is completely irrelevant to that, but he has shown his character to be worthless, dishonest and untrustworthy by committing the crimes he has while in office.

Atrocities said:
I did not say nor did I mean to infer in any way that you condone them and what they do.

It came across like very thinly veiled an accusation that I'm anti-American and probably a terrorist sympathizer, even if you were not aware of it and did not intend it. I've had similar things thrown in my face in the past with the sole intent to poison the audience against me and all of the people who did it routinely lied about their position, their evidence and even plainly indisputable facts. So I don't generally extend any benefit of the doubt when faced with that kind of passive-aggressive statements. From you, I will accept this explanation and I will chalk it up to a misunderstanding.

Atrocities said:
I just made an observation based upon the tone of your comments that you appear to feel that they are being treated unfairly and would rather support the cause of setting them free because it goes against Bush. That is just an observation and my own opinion. If you feel I am wrong in my observation then say so, there really is no need to make threats.

All I was asking was that those people be given a trial where their guilt or innocence be determined and then dealt with accordingly, instead of being kept in jail without charges indefinitely. As for threats, I did not make threats. I promised that the discussion would turn ugly if I were to be subjected to unfounded accusations. So far we seem to have had a misunderstanding.

And again, Bush is irrelevant to that, if it were Cheney, if it were Gore, Clinton, Pelosi or wheoever else who was in charge and kept denying due process to the detainees, I'd still say that was wrong. With Bush, it's just one of the many violations of law he has committed.

Atrocities said:
If you will recall, we have covered this ground before. It would seem apparent based upon how you worded your response that you are interested in forcing your point of view at all cost rather than debating on the merits of the topic.

If you feel I am not debating on the merits of the topic, you are free to point out where my position is factually wrong. I have not seen anything of the kind yet.

Atrocities said:
Instead of opting to debate you chose to attack, ridicule, and threaten. This is often the case with many liberals as they know that they cannot defend the undependable so they more often than not viciously attack any who do not share their opinion or views.

You began with what, from my point of view and given what I knew then, amounted to an ad hominem character assassination and you lecture me on proper conduct? You also make a sweeping generalization about all liberals when it happens to be an observed fact that anyone who dares criticize the Bush administration by presenting verifiable facts regarding their wrongdoing gets viciously smeared, ridiculed and harassed by his supporters.

You have done a fair amount of that sort of thing with snide, dismissive comments about how liberals and progressives are wrong just because of their political orientation and EVERY TIME, when challenged on those claims, you backpedal, you withdraw a little bit and clarify that you were really only talking about the extreme fringe elements when your original statement made no such distinctions. I know that MO very well, and I do not tolerate it. Do you have any idea of how much patience it takes not to just pull the napalm out immediately, even on people I generally respect, when they do that? It is very much in favor with those who prefer style over substance, i.e. that if an argument is not politely phrased to their satisfaction, they can be ignored regardless of factual content. For people like me, there are few more infuriating tactics.

Atrocities said:
This makes discussion and open debate with them somewhat problematic since they often refuse to compromise and often elect to hold true to facts even when they are proven to be inaccurate. When one side refuses to be open to other points of view and opts to attack those who don't share their views, well then that is not debate Edi, that is a one sided narrow view of the topic and issues at hand and it is counter productive to an open and free forum discussion.

Are you familiar with the Golden Mean fallacy? That's the one where it is assumed that if there are two opposing points of view, the truth must be somewhere in the middle and that both parties are supposed to compromise. Debate does not work that way. Unless you can actually provide enough evidence for your position to have merit, the opponent is under no obligation to compromise anything. I have yet to see ANY evidence at all that any of my arguments are baseless. If you have such evidence, feel free to present it. Such as quotes of the laws that say warrantless wiretapping of citizens is okay, that denying due process does not violate the constitution and so forth.

Atrocities said:
I would hate to think that you are attempting to scare away anyone who does not agree with you by threatening them. Without trying to offend you, I must point out that you insult but do not apologize yet threaten if an apology is not given to you when insulted.

You do have a point here. I do owe you an apology for the fairly vicious attacks on you at the end of my last post. I'd gotten pretty worked up by the time I got to that part. I am sorry about that. I do know better, but it always seems that to get to the actual meat of the matter, we have to hack away at a lot of sweeping generalizations. Coupled with the preface in the post I was replying to, it was a bit much to take.

Atrocities said:
This weakens you and your position and gives casual readers the impression that you are not an open minded person willing to debate but rather a narrow minded zealot who only wishes to engage in argument, name calling, and threatening behavior.

The conclusions the casual reader would draw would probably depend a lot on the personality and leanings of the reader in question. Neither one of us looks very palatable to anyone supportive of his opposing side. The people in the middle would be a tossup, depending on various things such as capacity for rational thinking, personality traits and other things.

Atrocities said:
I know that you are a skilled and gifted when it comes to debate and enjoy our little back and forth with much anticipation, but even you must concede that making threats is counter productive and does more harm than good. So which is it going to be Edi, are we going to have an open minded debate, or a flame war? I would prefer you chose debate because it is far more challenging than throwing insults back and forth at each and as a rule, I won't participate in a flame war.

Debate, rather than flamewar.

Atrocities said:
God only knows how much time you spent typing what can only be viewed as a manifesto regarding your point of view on this topic. You make some good arguments and I would enjoy responding to those but am fearful given the threatening nature of your last post.

Respond away. Typing that took less time than you probably think, since I can type very fast when I put some effort in.

Atrocities said:
You lost the high ground Edi when you started to make threats. Making an observation that you are acting as an advocate against the injustices you feel have been visited upon the Terrorists isn't calling you a terrorist. I would never deliberately insult you in that way. I hope that you know this and can take a step back and revisit my comment and take the meaning for which it was meant and not defer from it that I am calling you a terrorist.

The detainees are only terrorist suspects, not determined to be terrorists yet. Otherwise, so noted.

The problem is that you are almost the single exception I've encountered from your side of the political spectrum who means this. I've been in a lot of debates over the years and I've seen and heard all of the arguments you've put forth before. In the past, without exception, the people who made them were repeatedly caught lying and refused to consider any evidence as well as repeatedly used style over substance and other fallacies. I've seen literally hundreds of such people, and even the worst cases as per above have numbered in the dozens, so it's hard to keep on an even keel about it with you. Much like you have had a lot of bad experiences with fringenut lefties, only my opponents have been closer to the mainstream right wing than the outer fringes.

I have also faced my share of the moonbats on my own side of the fence and I'll admit without any shame that I tend to treat such people far worse than my actual opponents simply because they are good for nothing but wrecking painstakingly accomplished work and setting things back in square one. I may detest the extremists on the other side, but less than those on my own.

Atrocities said:
Finally, I would rather read your responses without all the implied name calling, threats, and bad language, as I do enjoy very much our debates.

EDIT: Fixed some spelling errors.

I'll do my best.