Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
User Journal

Journal neocon's Journal: Orson Scott Card 36

Journal by neocon

I'm gaining a lot of respect for Orson Scott Card, author of Ender's Game and other novels. Some time ago, I had pointed people here, in several posts, to this piece he wrote on Iraq and North Korea, and ellem and others have pointed out his recent piece, picked up by the Wall Street Journal, on the campaign of hate and fear being waged by the Democrats and many in the media against Bush and against the battle in Iraq.

Today, in his regular column over at The Ornery American, Card takes on the stunning lack of intellectual diversity in our allegedly diversity-happy campuses:

The reason our university faculties are full of people who accept hogwash in the name of political correctness is not because they are stupid or dishonest -- quite the contrary. It is simple human nature to accept as truth whatever the people around you unquestioningly believe. So P.C. dogmas that are outside of a faculty member's area of expertise are accepted without question simply because nobody else seems to be questioning them.

But this is precisely why litmus tests in hiring are so deeply harmful to the whole educational enterprise. It is not just students who need to be exposed to diversity of belief -- it is the faculty themselves who need people to disagree with them in order to stir their thoughts and bring out their best thinking.

Go read the whole thing -- he may be wrong about some things (he opposes the US decision to restrict where we spend our own Iraq reconstruction dollars, not (IMHO) adeequately considering that others are free to spend their reconstruction dollars in any nation they please), but he's quickly becoming one of my favorite registered Democrats.

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Orson Scott Card More

Orson Scott Card

Comments Filter:
  • I similarly have recently gained a great deal of respect for Republican USMC Gen. Anthony Zinni (Ret.) [washingtonpost.com], who was, until three years ago, in charge of CENTCOM.

    Anthony Zinni's passage from obedient general to outspoken opponent began in earnest in the unlikeliest of locations, the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He was there in Nashville in August 2002 to receive the group's Dwight D. Eisenhower Distinguished Service Award, recognition for his 35 years in the Marine Corps.

    Vice Presiden

    • With due respect, if Zinni says what you quoted him as saying, then he is a liar, plain and simple. Just shy of five years, ago, Zinni stated the following in testimony to the Senate which is a matter of public record [senate.gov]:

      Iraq's recent refusal to fully cooperate with the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) to account for and verify destruction of Iraq's existing Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and WMD development programs continued its pattern of interference and obstruction. This conduct led to A

    • But wait, there's more! In further public-record testimony [defenselink.mil], this time to the House Committee on Armed Services, on March 15, 2000, Zinni said:

      While Iraq's WMD capabilities were degraded under UN supervision and set back by Coalition strikes, some capabilities remain and others could quickly be regenerated. Despite claims that WMD efforts have ceased, Iraq probably is continuing clandestine nuclear research, retains stocks of chemical and biological munitions, and is concealing extended-range SCUD miss

      • Zinni's qualifiers "probably" and "possibly" do not contradict his assertion that the intelligence regarding Iraq never indicated any actual WMD possession. And your earlier quotation from his Senate testimony only clams that Iraq failed to document the destruction of WMDs that had existed at some point in the past, but of which inspectors had at that point found no trace.

        Zinni's assertion is in agreement with Colin Powell's 24 February 2001 statement [state.gov] in Cairo, that Iraq, "has not developed any significa

        • Mm-hmm. So in your opinion, when Zinni said ``some capabilities remain'' he actually meant ``no capabilities remain'', and when he said ``remaining stocks of chemical and biological munitions'', he meant ``no remaining stocks of chemical and biological munitions''?

          While your reading comprehension is as creative as ever (right up with your reading ``per capita gdp'' as ``mean salary'' a few days back), that doesn't even pass the laugh test.

          And that's not even mentioning that you chose not to respond

          • Welcome back!

            Of course you managed to miss the last 6 months of Slashdot (where the US certainly hasn't been winning the invasion of Iraq).

            And now, you're back once again. So now, you think that Saddam's capture is actually going to have an effect upon the constant number of people being killed due to the stupidity of idiots like you.

            So you think you can pop your head back up out of the murky crap you've been hiding in for the last 6 months and start yacking about how invading Iraq was the right decisio

            • (where the US certainly hasn't been winning the invasion of Iraq)...you think that Saddam's capture is actually going to have an effect upon the constant number of people being killed...

              Interesting. We're not winning the war in Iraq. This doesn't seem to agree with you. [dod.gov]

              Attacks against coalition forces in northern Iraq have dropped significantly in recent weeks, and 95 percent of them fail to hurt coalition personnel or even damage coalition vehicles

              and

              "Every month it gets better," he said. "We were

              • Well said. Funny how those who would rather fight terrorists in the downtown of our own cities than half way across the world (not to mention 50 million liberated in Iraq and Afghanistan) claim that they are picking the less expensive path.

                Or, in other words, ``You think a few billion for the war in Iraq is expensive? Try paying to fill in the glowing hole where Chicago used to be.''

              • So, in answer to your question "who pays the price", it is of course everybody -- military or otherwise. This is true at both extremes -- if we do nothing or if we do what has been done.

                Ah yes... Spoken like someone who's never had to sacrifice anything.

                Although I appreciate your post, it doesn't really address much of anything I wrote about (especially since it was a flame pointedly directed at someone other than you). But thanks all the same.

                You can cheerlead all you want, it doesn't change what

                • On the contrary, `tres', it is you who gladly volunteered hundreds of thousands more Iraqis to pay the ultimate sacrifice, and who are whining about the fact that now they won't have to. You have no moral high ground here.

                • Ah yes... Spoken like someone who's never had to sacrifice anything

                  What a presumptive prick. You've no idea who I am or what "sacrifices" have been made by me and my family. I'll take your statement as nothing but rhetoric used to make *YOU* feel good about your position.

                  it doesn't really address much of anything I wrote about

                  It doesn't? What you "wrote" appeared to "address" some created notion that we weren't winning in Iraq. This notion, as I pointed out, certainly appears to be false. In case y

                  • Indeed -- `tres' is as long on hyperbolic claims, and as short on cites as ever in this thread. I think most of his bitterness comes from losing a bet [slashdot.org] a few months back (extra credit was awarded for his betting on Iraq just eight days before the fall of Baghdad).

              • you think that Saddam's capture is actually going to have an effect upon the constant number of people being killed...

                Interesting. We're not winning the war in Iraq. This doesn't seem to agree with you. [dod.gov]

                Well, there's your unbiased source. I like this quote:

                Odierno showed Rumsfeld a chart detailing thousands of weapons, IEDs, rockets, grenades, blasting caps, ammunition rounds, explosives and other equipment task force soldiers found in a recent 45-day period. "I had 3,400 cache sites in o

                • Fascinating, isn't it, how the only article you find to cite compares only the two weeks immediately preceeding and following Saddam's capture to make its point.

                  Were Saddam captured in a vacuum, this might make (a little) sense. He wasn't, however -- he was captured in the midst of a massive wave of operations over a month and a half period which have indeed substantially reduced the number of attacks:

                  • ``Military officials said the number of attacks had decreased significantly -- down from about 50
                • Frankly, I don't see your point. I provided links to many articles which report that over the last few months attacks of dramatically reduced (from 50 down to around 15). This is still true.

                  I've no idea what you are trying to claim. The parent claimed that we weren't winning the war in Iraq. I provided links which disgreed with the parents claim. You've provided nothing that counters that claim and only addressed ONE of the articles I cite which you've decided is untrustworthy yet provide no material

            • Mmm-hmm. And when you go to sleep at night, does calling people ``idiots'' make you feel better about the fact that if we had acted as you desired, the mass graves (300,000 dead found so far) would still be filling up? Does it quiet the screams of the children at Halabja who clawed their own faces off to escape the agony of the nerve gas? Do the humans tossed into industrial shredders become faceless to you because you called those who are happy that this torture and murder has ceased `idiots'?

              Or, no

              • Funny how you feel so moved by the problems the Iraqis faced, but wouldn't do a thing to help the hundreds of thousands of men, women and children who have been hacked to pieces in Africa over the last three years (not thirty years).

                Funny how when I read the words of Iraqis, they're not grateful for you destroying their country, then claiming to have "saved" them from themselves. They're not one bit grateful for you setting the fires of anarchy, then leaving them to burn.

                Funny how you were so convinced 8

                • That's the best you can come up with? Really? If we can't stop all suffering everywhere than we'd better not stop that suffering which we can easily put an end to? That's your moral high horse?

                  What a joke.

                  As for the gratitude of the Iraqi people, I dare say you haven't been paying much attention, now have you:

                  • ``In a survey carried out by the Psychological Research Center of Baghdad University, 71.5 percent of Iraqis think the US occupation is necessary at least for a while ... The study also s
                  • I suppose your definition of "imminent threat" is a couple of trailers that can be used to fill helium balloons.

                    "Imminent threat." You can say it, I know you can.

                    Why don't you try reading the words of Iraqis instead of using some lame, pre-canned, out-of-context statistics. If you were an Iraqi, and a Western reporter asks you how you feel about something, chances are you're going to tell them what they want to hear because you don't want to have your house raided in the middle of the night.

                    The fact sti

                    • Your ideas of ``facts'' are as pliable as ever, tres -- I have already linked [slashdot.org] in this thread to evidence of dozens of incidents of Iraq funding and training al Qaeda and other terrorist groups, and the Kay report [cia.gov] on Iraq's WMD programs -- which you clearly cannot be bothered to read -- details dozens of finds, including but not limited to:

                      • A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for continuing

                    • "Imminent threat."

                      If I recall correctly, this term is being tossed around alot as originating from the President. It's funny. He never said that. What he said was:

                      "Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?"

                      And that was in the State of the Union Address 2003. In fact, the EARLIEST use of the phrase "imminent threat" came from Sen. Bob Graham, Democrat who said the

                    • Indeed -- I often challenge opponents of the administration to point out anywhere that Bush stated that there was an imminent threat. Then, after they hem and haw a little (and fail to come up with such a source, of course), I bring out the SotU quote you just posted, and watch them squirm. :-)

                    • Go find "bush" in my post containing the phrase "imminent threat."

                      You, I'm afraid, have also turned into a yawn.

                      So you too have clearance to spin whatever AM radio version of reality you like; I won't be here wasting my time on it.

                    • Go find where I said *YOU* claimed Bush said that?

                      My point is that the idea of going to war with Iraq because it was an "imminent threat" came outside the current administration and appears to be currently used as a "spin" tool by those with an axe to grind against the current administration. You keep saying that the reasons given to go to war were "lies". How about enumerating them and provide sources as to how they were "lies"?

                      I would suggest that you are are the one spinning by even bringing up the p

                    • I often challenge opponents of the administration to point out anywhere that Bush stated that there was an imminent threat. Then, after they hem and haw a little (and fail to come up with such a source, of course)

                      Senator Nelson said [floridatoday.com] about 75 senators were told during a classified briefing immediatly prior to the vote authorizing force that Iraq had both biological and chemical weapons, notably anthrax, and it could deliver them to cities along the Eastern seaboard via unmanned aerial vehicles.

                      www.whit

                    • From the article you cited regarding Sentator Nelson:

                      Nelson wouldn't say what the original source of the intelligence was, but said it contradicted other intelligence reports senators had received.

                      Interesting points here. We dont know (A) the source and (B) the full extent of the briefing the senators recieved. We also know the senators ALSO received reports that claimed Iraq wasn't such an immediate threat as noted in his "contradicted other intelligence reports" statement. It is quite possible

                    • We also know the senators ALSO received reports that claimed Iraq wasn't such an immediate threat as noted in his "contradicted other intelligence reports" statement.

                      Yes they did, earlier before the vote to authorize force.

                      I assume you are not trying to suggest that this briefing was some type of defacto claim by the administration that Iraq was an "imminent threat" with this single brief from a single senator who provided sketchy information that is obviously one sided.

                      Of course I am; how can you

                    • Yes they did, earlier before the vote to authorize force.

                      GOOD! So we are in apparent agreement that the Senators had been provided such information prior to their vote authorizing force. Yet they still authorized force. As I am unware (and I'm sure you are likewise unaware) of the full extent of the intellegence provided, how it was provided and the emphasis placed on it, we cannot POSSIBLY conclude there was a "willful and malicious disinformation campaign on the eve of Congress's vote authorizing for

                    • should it come to light that bits and pieces of information are being selectively released for political gains, regardless of what the "big picture" was, those responsible should face similar justice. [to excution???]

                      Well, so much for defending others' right to say what one disagrees with.

                    • Well, so much for defending others' right to say what one disagrees with.

                      Treason. Both are acts of treason. IF such information is being released deliberatly and in such as fashon as to deliberatly undermine the war efforts:

                      The Constitution of the United States, Art. III, defines treason against the United States to consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort. This offence is punished with death.

                      Sounds like "aid and comfort" to me. I highly do

                    • Treason convictions in the U.S. require four elements: (1) the defendant's intention to betray the United States, (2) manifested in an overt act, (3) testified to by two witnesses, (4) which gave aid and comfort to the enemy.

                      Anyone who does anything for a political gain, whether it be Karl Rove for perhaps leaking the name and status of a CIA non-official cover WMD sentinel, or Bill Nelson for perhaps leaking a misleading part of a larger story about imminence claims regarding anthrax-laden Iraqi drones,

                    • You, sir, are a pip.

                      You completely ignore the meat of my argument and instead focus on the one 'bone' I threw you. I'll address this later.

                      I've bent over backwards attempting to show you that the conclusions you are drawing make no sense based on the information available. I'll go over this again:

                      You claim that the current administration is guilty of the following: a "willful and malicious disinformation campaign on the eve of Congress's vote authorizing force".

                      You base this on a single comment by Se
                    • I ignored "the meat" of your argument because I thought it was, and still is, speculation. Time will tell the truth. I'm sure as we get closer to November, others beside Nelson will speak out. Until there's a meaningfully investigative follow-up to the Iraqi anthrax drone story, I'm not inclined to argue about the details.

                      As for "treason," though, I think your opinion is oviously and demonstrably wrong. In the U.S., you are allowed to do almost anything with words to change the government. You are al

                    • As Jhon has already pointed out, the rate at which your argument shifts, combined with your Howard-Dean-like tendency to say remarkably dumb things ``off the cuff'' and then back away from them when they are pointed out (such as your confusion of per capita GDP with mean salary, your insistence that US gubernatorial elections are held in March, and so forth), clearly show that you are much more interested in `winning' an argument than in making truthful, or even consistent, statements.

                      That said, your st

                    • if an American were to go and fight for al Qaeda against the US (say), your argument would clear him, since he does indeed ``feel it would be better for his country'' to lose

                      On the contrary, fighting "against the U.S.," is certainly an intentional betrayal in the eyes of any jury.

                      Fighting for the political advantage of either party is not, especially when it is obsious that the suspect has been a longstanding supporter of the party because he or she believes it is the best one to lead.

Slashdot Top Deals

"No matter where you go, there you are..." -- Buckaroo Banzai

Close