Talking Points (Thomas Sowell)

Jewish World Review ^ | May 12, 2009 | Thomas Sowell

[jazusamo]

One of the many signs of the degeneration of our times is how many serious, even life-and-death, issues are approached as talking points in a game of verbal fencing. Nothing illustrates this more than the fatuous, and even childish, controversy about "torturing" captured terrorists.

People's actions often make far more sense than their words. Most of the people who are talking lofty talk about how we mustn't descend to the level of our enemies would themselves behave very differently if presented with a comparable situation, instead of being presented with an opportunity to be morally one up with rhetoric.

What if it was your mother or your child who was tied up somewhere beside a ticking time bomb and you had captured a terrorist who knew where that was? Face it: What you would do to that terrorist to make him talk would make water-boarding look like a picnic.

You wouldn't care what the New York Times would say or what "world opinion" in the U.N. would say. You would save your loved one's life and tell those other people what they could do.

But if the United States behaves that way it is called "arrogance"-- even by American citizens. Indeed, even by the American president. There is a big difference between being ponderous and being serious. It is scary when the President of the United States is not being serious about matters of life and death, saying that there are "other ways" of getting information from terrorists.

Maybe this is a step up from the previous talking point that "torture" had not gotten any important information out of terrorists. Only after this had been shown to be a flat-out lie did Barack Obama shift his rhetoric to the lame assertion that unspecified "other ways" could have been used.

[jazusamo]

*PING*
Thomas Sowell

Recent columns
“Empathy“ Versus Law: Part IV
“Empathy“ Versus Law: Part III
“Empathy“ Versus Law: Part II
“Empathy” Versus Law

Please FReepmail me if you would like to be added to, or removed from, the Thomas Sowell ping list…

[Winstons Julia]

He’s just a racist redneck!

[Inyo-Mono]

You wouldn't care what the New York Times would say or what "world opinion" in the U.N. would say. You would save your loved one's life and tell those other people what they could do.

Exactlly! God bless Thomas Sowell and his wisdom in the eye of of a hurricane of idiots.

[gidget7]

Thomas Sowell 2010

[the OlLine Rebel]

‘It is scary when the President of the United States is not being serious about matters of life and death, saying that there are “other ways” of getting information from terrorists.’

Again, it boils down to the question “who is better?”

Uhbama thinks THEY are better (anyone not American), as do all “liberals”.

We know WE are better, and thus are more deserving of life when the only choice is 1 or the other lives.

[Pessimist]

Sowell knocks it out of the park again!!

[donaldo]

Sowell - Williams, 2012
Blacks To The Future

[jazusamo]

Yep, Obama and his leftist supporters are more worried about what the world will think about us instead of saving American lives.

[jazusamo]

God bless Thomas Sowell and his wisdom in the eye of of a hurricane of idiots.

Amen to that!

[rockinqsranch]

Thanks for the ping jaz.

Idiots all. Dems, Libs, Socialists, and RINO’s. We should be complaining of torture as we have to listen to them.

They don’t come with an off switch. There oughtta be a law.

[jazusamo]

It blows me away that Obama doesn’t take his most important responsibility seriously, that of protecting our nation.

[Intolerant in NJ]

One of the many signs of the degeneration of our times is how many serious, even life-and-death, issues are approached as talking points in a game of verbal fencing...and the latest thrust-parry in this torture farce seems to be the idea that, well yes maybe we did get valuable information from terrorists through "torture" like waterboarding, but there's not proof we couldn't have gotten the same information through other less awful methods. As though having a chat along with some tea and cookies would have persuaded these thugs, out to kill as many of us possible, that the US really is their friend and that they should betray their plans and colleagues for that friendship - preposterous.....

[jazusamo]

Preposterous is a great word for it, they’d rather die than rat out their fellow terrorists but it seems waterboarding breaks them.

[Uhaul]

Thomas Sowell for King. Man that he is, he would refuse the job.

[taxesareforever]

The left despises this man because he is a black man who tells it like it is and not like they want it to be. Also, they can’t call him a racist and that has them grinding their teeth.

[rawcatslyentist]

>"It is scary when the President of the United States is not being serious about matters of life and death,"

"For the first time in my life...."

Thank You Satan 1:50

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The left has long confused physical parallels with moral parallels. But when a criminal shoots at a policeman and the policeman shoots back, physical equivalence is not moral equivalence

Sowell is always good for a keeper or two . . .

[NewLand]

Obama and his leftist supporters are more worried about what the world will think about us instead of saving American lives.

Agreed...and exactly who is "the world" anyway?

[Diana in Wisconsin]

BUMP for later fix. ;)