No shit!?
Just how disconnected are the right-wing pseudo-Christians from reality? Why, they are 95% disconnected from it.
Wednesday, December 20, 2006
Friday, December 15, 2006
Immigration Deform
How to turn 11 million people from hard-working members of society into desperate criminals: immigration dragnets
Monday, November 27, 2006
Worst Possible Outcome
"Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says Iran is "ready to help" calm Iraq's fighting."
Worst possible outcome: strengthen your enemy. Anyone not divorced from reality could have seen this coming a mile away.
Worst possible outcome: strengthen your enemy. Anyone not divorced from reality could have seen this coming a mile away.
Saturday, November 04, 2006
Kafkaesque
Kafkaesque:
"A suspected terrorist who spent years in a secret CIA prison should not be allowed to speak to a civilian attorney, the Bush administration argues, because he could reveal the agency's closely guarded interrogation techniques."
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Sacrifice and Cowardice
I've been thinking about John Yoo and his Unitary Executive theory of the President's power. His argument is that in a time of war the President has leeway to go outside of the bounds of the Constitution in order to safeguard the well-being of the nation; that no law constrains his actions in some extraordinary cases, e.g. the "ticking time bomb" scenario. It may in fact be the case that sometimes one must violate a law in order to safeguard a greater good. It does not follow that one would be free of sanction in such cases.
I think the "ticking time bomb" vs. the President scenario is akin to the old quandary of what a priest should do if a person confesses to poisoning a well and gives details about how he is going to do it again. The standard reply is that the priest must notify the authorities, identify the perp and accept latae sententiae excommunication - since he has violated one of the sacraments; and he must also content himself with burning in Hell for eternity. The key here is that yes, some extraordinary circumstances may require one to venture outside of the standard zone of civilized behavior; but one must recognize that it is one's duty to accept and live with the consequences. You can choose your response, but you can't choose the consequences.
Where Yoo's argument holds no ground is his corollary that since the President is violating the Constitution in order to protect it, he is therefore immune from any sanction. That is not true. He must be willing to accept the consequences even as he recognizes the need to act in a way that demands sanction from the very thing he is trying to protect.
You wouldn't jump in front of a bus in order to push a child out of the way and yet expect not to be harmed by the bus. You would do it fully aware of the price you were about to pay. It's called sacrifice, and this President has failed to sacrifice for his country.
In fact, he didn't even want the citizens to sacrifice. What should we do after 9-11? "Just go about our business and stay busy shopping," was his response. He won't call on us to sacrifice (higher taxes to pay for the war, some kind of draft to ensure we have the manpower to prevail), and he is not willing himself to sacrifice ("I can break the law, but I'm immune to the consequences.").
I think that makes him a coward.
I think the "ticking time bomb" vs. the President scenario is akin to the old quandary of what a priest should do if a person confesses to poisoning a well and gives details about how he is going to do it again. The standard reply is that the priest must notify the authorities, identify the perp and accept latae sententiae excommunication - since he has violated one of the sacraments; and he must also content himself with burning in Hell for eternity. The key here is that yes, some extraordinary circumstances may require one to venture outside of the standard zone of civilized behavior; but one must recognize that it is one's duty to accept and live with the consequences. You can choose your response, but you can't choose the consequences.
Where Yoo's argument holds no ground is his corollary that since the President is violating the Constitution in order to protect it, he is therefore immune from any sanction. That is not true. He must be willing to accept the consequences even as he recognizes the need to act in a way that demands sanction from the very thing he is trying to protect.
You wouldn't jump in front of a bus in order to push a child out of the way and yet expect not to be harmed by the bus. You would do it fully aware of the price you were about to pay. It's called sacrifice, and this President has failed to sacrifice for his country.
In fact, he didn't even want the citizens to sacrifice. What should we do after 9-11? "Just go about our business and stay busy shopping," was his response. He won't call on us to sacrifice (higher taxes to pay for the war, some kind of draft to ensure we have the manpower to prevail), and he is not willing himself to sacrifice ("I can break the law, but I'm immune to the consequences.").
I think that makes him a coward.
Monday, October 30, 2006
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Tight-mouthed Pall of Failure
Martin Amis
Bush, a ghost of "tight-mouthed pall of failure" wandering through "an atmosphere of feud and grudge."
After 9-11 American hegemony "became a matter of options and capabilities, of war plans cracked out on the President'’s desk. We can understand the afflatus, the rush of blood, in the White House: overnight, demonstrably and palpably, a tax-cutting dry drunk from West Texas became the most powerful man in human history. One wonders, nowadays, how it goes with Bush, in his glands and sinews. Post-September 11, he had the body language of the man in the bar who isn'’t going anywhere till he has had his fistfight. Now he looks washed, rinsed, bleached, his flat smile an awful rictus; that upper lip has lost all its lift."
Bush, a ghost of "tight-mouthed pall of failure" wandering through "an atmosphere of feud and grudge."
After 9-11 American hegemony "became a matter of options and capabilities, of war plans cracked out on the President'’s desk. We can understand the afflatus, the rush of blood, in the White House: overnight, demonstrably and palpably, a tax-cutting dry drunk from West Texas became the most powerful man in human history. One wonders, nowadays, how it goes with Bush, in his glands and sinews. Post-September 11, he had the body language of the man in the bar who isn'’t going anywhere till he has had his fistfight. Now he looks washed, rinsed, bleached, his flat smile an awful rictus; that upper lip has lost all its lift."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)