Talk about a wolf guarding the sheep ...

BeAChooser said:
http://www.aim.org/aim-column/panet...ampaign=10215c315a-email0614&utm_medium=email



:popcorn1
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So this guy is friends with a communist. What's your point? The most conservative friend I have (and I mean, to the point that he's a lawyer who volunteers his services for Republican political campaigns, and for far right candidates, not moderates) is married to a Chinese citizen who was raised in Communist China, whose parents are active members of the Communist bureaucracy, and who only moved here from China one year ago. That doesn't make him a communist.

In college, as a vegetarian concerned with animal and environmental issues, I was friends with more radical vegetarians, the kind who actually advocate criminal acts and are involved with groups like ALF and ELF. I even went to a few meetings lead by a man who is now in jail for his illegal politically motivated activities.

But I never became a radical myself, never threatened anyone or committed any illegal activities by animal welfare/environmental activists, nor do I endorse these activities. In fact, I openly condemn these acts and groups. Heck, I don't even promote vegetarianism in any way (though I did in my early college years). I just am one. I buy and cook meat for my husband, for pete's sakes.

I really don't understand these threads you make in which you think being associated or friends with someone means you must share their ideology, and the only proof needed is the existence of said friendship or association.
 
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Upchurch said:
Clearly, the trees are circumstantial, anecdotal, and other such non-evidence that can't prove anything and the forest is the "truth" B knows is true despite that. See? We can't see his faith-based truth for (or through the) crap evidence he provides. If we could just stop nitpicking his crap evidence and just see the overall picture his crap evidence paints, we'd be much better off.
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I think you've explicated the "forest through the trees" thing accurately. (What's funny is there are at least as many times when BAC tells us to attend to the details and forget the big picture, though.)

But I still don't know who the sheep are in the thread title. . . .

And frankly, the silliness of the claim that Panetta shouldn't be nominated and confirmed Secretary of Defense based on his palling around with Chinese Communists is far less important than figuring out who the sheep are in this metaphor.
 
If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, do you teach an old dog new tricks?
 
Only if one hand clapping sounds like a house of cards.
 
BeAChooser said:
And for those who don't think China is a threat (since China is a big part of this story ).
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What exactly is your point? Are you insinuating that Panetta, as Secretary of Defense is somehow going to make the U.S. vunerable to some sort of Chinese attack (military or otherwise)?
 
Well if a wolf guarding sheep is a bad thing and we think that Panetta is the wolf (I think:confused: ) and no one knows who the sheep is/are I think we know a little bit about the shepherds! Clearly the republican's in the senate are the the shepherds as they choose the guardian for the sheep!

OR.... The senate are also guardians of the sheep and may or may not be wolves. By the republicans unanimously voting for Panetta perhaps they were just letting another sheep dog into their pack to assist with guard duties and they didn't know he was a wolf!

OR... Panetta is the sheep and the republicans in the senate are the wolves!

We may never clear this up! Perhaps BaC you could clarify why you think the Senate republicans (sheep/shepherds/sheep dogs/wolves) voted for Panetta?
 
ANTPogo said:
What, the one from the Infoworld Magazine April Fool's article?
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JoeTheJuggler said:
Why do I have the feeling we're going to hear about another conspiracy theory?

Even the Cato Institute says this hoax started as an April Fool's story.
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There ya go. Looking at the trees and not the forest.

The important thing here isn't that B's story of a printer bringing down Iraq's air defense system is complete hogwash. The important thing is that B's story lend credence to his belief that Obama is a socialist/communist and, therefore, we should uncritically accept this April Fools joke as true.

Or something.
 
Ok, now I am confused as I have spent the last 10 weeks in a Westerosi fugue (Game of Thrones fan here). I know that the Wolves are the Starks, but the Sheep must be the Lamb People that the Dothraki (Horses) destroyed. But since Wolf is singular, it must refer to Ser Jorah, because he was a Stark Banner-man (nominally a wolf, but his family sigil is actually a bear). The only problem is that he is guarding Dany, who is a Dragon. So he is actually a wolf guarding the Dragon and that makes no sense.*

* I have been taking writing lessons from TM. not quite yet up to his quality yet, but I am trying.
 
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Upchurch said:
The important thing is that B's story lend credence to his belief that Obama is a socialist/communist and, therefore, we should uncritically accept this April Fools joke as true.
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Except this was during the Gulf War presumably at the point when Iraq still had air defense capabilities. At that time, Obama was either an Illinois State Senator or a freshman U.S. Senator, and either way not in a position to control or influence U.S. covert cyber-operations abroad.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
Except this was during the Gulf War presumably at the point when Iraq still had air defense capabilities. At that time, Obama was either an Illinois State Senator or a freshman U.S. Senator, and either way not in a position to control or influence U.S. covert cyber-operations abroad.
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I don't think BaC is saying Obama had anything to do with the supposed cyberwarfare that took down Iraq's air defense system (and in any case, this was supposed to have happened during the first Gulf War, in 1991, when Obama was just a Visiting Law and Government Fellow at the University of Chicago law school).

BaC was just using the story as an example of the dangers represented by Panetta's purported perfidy, since if we could take down Iraq's defense net with special virus-laden chips, China could do the same to us.

The fact that the Iraq story is a complete fiction transforms BaC's claim from a prescient warning into yet another example of his willingness to swallow any story, no matter how farfetched, without the slightest bit of skeptical research...as long as it conforms to his preconceived biases, of course.
 
So long as Panetta isn't allowed near a printer I don't see what the problem is.
 
JoeTheJuggler said:
Except this was during the Gulf War presumably at the point when Iraq still had air defense capabilities. At that time, Obama was either an Illinois State Senator or a freshman U.S. Senator, and either way not in a position to control or influence U.S. covert cyber-operations abroad.
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Will. You. Stop. Looking. At. The. Trees?!?

The forest is that Obama is evil, m'kay? If you won't look at the forest, all you'll see are trees that fall down the moment you look at them funny.

ANTPogo said:
The fact that the Iraq story is a complete fiction transforms BaC's claim from a prescient warning into yet another example of his willingness to swallow any story, no matter how farfetched, without the slightest bit of skeptical research...as long as it conforms to his preconceived biases, of course.
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Now look. If you keep wasting everyone's time by pointing out how B's argument has no foundation, how is anyone going to know he's right?
 
Alt+F4 said:
Are you insinuating that Panetta, as Secretary of Defense is somehow going to make the U.S. vunerable to some sort of Chinese attack (military or otherwise)?
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Well, essentially that is what his former boss, Bill Clinton, did when he made it possible for China to acquire US technology that had previously been listed as restricted (from sale to Communist countries) ... technology like supercomputers, missile and satellite technology, submarine related technology, encryption technology, manufacturing technology and nuclear technology ... all in exchange for large, but illegal, campaign contributions to the Clinton and DNC campaign coffers. And Panetta was involved in that effort, or at least in the coverup of that effort when it came to light. Probably his involvement was even greater than that since he was Clinton's Chief of Staff through most of that period. So yes, I wouldn't put it past Panetta to do things that will make the US even more vulnerable to Chinese attack. It obviously didn't matter to him then, and I doubt it matters to him now.
 
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